APR    3    1902 


iaoz 


FACSIMILE   OF   KING  JAMES   VERSION,  1611 


[Green  Fund  Book,  No.  10.] 

OUR 


Sixty-Six  Sacred  Books; 

OR, 

HOW  OUR  BIBLE  WAS  MADE. 


A  POPULAR    HANDBOOK  FOR  COLLEGES,   NORMAL  CLASSES  AND 

SUNDAY-SCHOOLS    ON    THE    AUTHORSHIP,     CONTENTS, 

PRESERVATION   AND   CIRCULATION    OF  THE 

CHRISTIAN    SCRIPTURES. 

ENLARGED  .EDITION,    WITH  ANALYSIS  AND  QUESTIONS. 

TENTH    THOUSAND. 


By  the  REV.   EDWIN  W.   RICE,  D.  D., 

Author  of  Commentaries  on  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  John,  The  Acts, 
Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  Handy  Helps  for  Busy  Workers,  etc. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

AMERICAN   SUNDAY-SCHOOL   UNION, 

1 1 22  Chestnut  Street. 

1902. 


Copyright,  1891,  by  The  American  Sunday-School  Union. 


Copyright,  1901,  by  The  American  Sunday-School  Union. 


PREFACE. 

This  book  grew  out  of  a  "Bible  Study  Circle"  of 
advanced  students  and  teachers,  who  pursued  a  course 
of  studies  under  the  direction  of  the  author.  Within 
ten  years  since  the  course  was  published  the  book 
has  run  through  several  editions. 

The  work  has  now  been  carefully  re-written,  and 
much  enlarged,  to  incorporate  the  accepted  results  of 
recent  explorations  and  the  researches  of  critical 
scholars  within  the  past  decade.  These  results  have 
been  gleaned  from  all  available  sources,  criticisms  and 
facts  having  been  sought,  and  generously  furnished  by 
some  of  the  most  eminent  Biblical  scholars  living. 
The  author  specialty  acknowledges  important  sugges- 
tions and  facts  from  the  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Uni- 
versity Presses,  from  the  secretaries  of  the  American, 
the  British  and  Foreign  and  other  Bible  societies,  and 
from  Bible  publishing  houses  of  America  and  Europe. 
He  is  also  deeply  indebted  to  specialists  among  the 
learned  professors  of  some  of  the  leading  universities 
and  theological  seminaries  and  schools  of  England 
and  America,  without  whose  aid  the  book  could  not 
have  been  perfected. 

The  work  is  now  sent  forth  in  this  enlarged  form  in 
the  hope  that  it  will  continue  to  stimulate  a  more 
earnest  study,  and  further  a  more  accurate  knowledge, 
of  the  character  and  divine  authority  of  our  Christian 
Scriptures.  EDWIN  W.   RICE. 

December,  1 90 1. 


OUR  SIXTY-SIX   SACRED   BOOKS. 


CHAPTER  I. 


the  bible:  —  title:  —  books:  —  two  divisions: — lan- 
guages : — preservation  : — structure  ■  —  anglo-ameri- 
can  version  : — king  james  version. 

i.  The  Bible  is  the  greatest  book  in  the  world:  (i)  in 
the  number  of  copies  circulated  and  read;  (2)  in  promot- 
ing the  highest  civilizations ;  (3)  in  a  clear  revelation  of 
God,  of  a  reasonable  religion,  and  of  the  mighty  conflict 
between  good  and  evil. 

The  nations  that  are  swayed  by  its  teachings  now  rule 
over  more  than  800,000,000  of  the  human  race,  and  prac- 
tically control  the  world. 

For,  the  foremost  powers  of  the  world — (1)  in  learning 
and  literature;  (2)  in  science  and  invention;  (3)  in  com- 
merce and  wealth  ;  are  the  United  States  of  America;  Great 
Britain^and  Germany. 

Ask  these  three  foremost  nations  for  their  greatest  book 
in  respect  of:  (1)  its  circulation;  (2)  its  influence  on  na- 
tional life ;  (3)  its  power  in  promoting  virtue,  the  stability 
and  purity  of  the  people,  and  without  hesitation  they  will 
answer,  The  Bible. 

2.  Its  Title. — The  name  or  title,  The  Bible,  is  of  com- 
paratively recent  date.     It  came  from  the  Greek  Biblian — 

(7) 


8  the  bible:  its  title. 

"little  book,"  and  the  Greek  and  Latin  Biblia — "  books." 
The  Latin  plural  was  used  by  Chaucer  in  Canterbury  Tales, 
by  Wyckliffe  in  his  preface  to  a  translation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  was  adopted  as  a  title  by  Coverdale  in  his  Eng- 
lish Version.  Jerome,  and  Latin  Christians,  with  greater 
precision  called  the  collection  of  sacred  Scriptures  Bibli- 
otheca  Divina,  or  Sane ta — "  Divine  "or  "  Sacred  Library," 
and  Greek  Christians,  as  Chrysostom  termed  them,  Theia 
Biblia — "  Divine  Books,"  thus  showing  that  they  regarded 
the  Scriptures  as  a  collection,   rather  than  a  single  book. 

During  the  growth  of  this  collection  it  would  be  likely 
to  be  given  different  titles,  and  this  we  find  to  be  the  fact. 

In  the  apostolic  era  the  Jewish  sacred  books  (now  our 
"  Old  Testament  ")  were  referred  to  as  "  the  Scriptures,"  l 
and  evidently  some  New  Testament  writings  were  called 
"Scriptures."2  The  Jewish  Scriptures  were  also  spoken 
of  as  "the  law,"  "the  prophets"  and  "the  Psalms."8 
Sometimes  the  term  used  was  "  holy  Scriptures."  4 

The  title  "Testament  "  comes  from  the  Latin  testamentum 
— "will,"  "Testament,"  or  "covenant."  It  was  in  use 
before  Tertullian  (200-240  A.  D.)  who  preferred  instru- 
mentum — "document,"  but  testamentum  survived,  probably 
from  a  misapprehension  of  the  Greek  terms  palaia  diatheke 
— "  old  covenant,"  used  by  Paul,  2  Cor.  3  :  14,  which  was 
understood  in  the  technical  sense  of  "  will  "  or  "testament" 
instead  of  the  usual  sense  of  "covenant,"  as  used  in  the 
classic  Greek,  and  in  the  Septuagint,  where  it  represents  the 
Hebrew  word  frith — "covenant."     A  similar  term  mean- 

1  Matt.  22  :  29  ;   Mark  12  :  24  ;  John  10  :  35. 

2  2  Pet.  3:16. 

3  Luke  24  :  44 ;  John  12  :  34  ;  Acts  I  :  20  ;    28  :  23. 
4 Rom.  1  :2;  2  Tim.  3  :  15. 


NUMBER    OF    BOOKS:    THE    LANGUAGES.  9 

ing  "New  Covenant  "  is  found  in  Jer.  31  :  31.  Thus  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures  were  termed  the  "Old  Covenant,"  or 
"  Old  Testament  " — the  "  book  of  the  covenant."  * 

3.  Number  of  Books. — The  Hebrews  accepted  the  39 
books  which  now  comprise  the  "  Old  Testament  "  as  sacred 
Scriptures.  The  early  Christians  accepted  27  books  writ- 
ten by  apostles  and  apostolic  men  as  also  sacred,  and  these 
comprise  the  New  Testament.  Hence  the  Bible  is  com- 
posed of  sixty-six  sacred  books,  gathered  into  one  volume, 
and  for  several  centuries  has  been  known  as  The  Bible. 

4.  The  people  of  every  nation  and  race — Asiatic,  Afri- 
can, European,  American,  and  dwellers  in  the  isles  of  the 
sea — want  to  know  about  this  great  book. 

What  kind  of  a  book  is  the  Bible  ?  Who  wrote  it  ?  In 
what  language?  How  long  ago  was  it  written?  For 
whom  ?  How  did  you  get  it  ?  What  other  peoples  have 
it  ?  Into  how  many  languages  is  it  translated  ?  What 
does  it  teach  ?  By  what  authority  ?  How  do  you  know 
that  the  original  is  truthfully  represented  by  the  copies  now 
extant  ? 

These  and  a  hundred  other  questions  demand  intelli- 
gent answers.  What  do  Christians  know  of  the  origin, 
languages,  history,  contents,  authors  and  purpose  of  this 
great  book  ?  These  questions  are  worthy  of  clear  and 
scholarly  consideration.  Let  us  address  ourselves  to  some 
of  them. 

5.  The  Languages. — The  several  books  of  the  Bible 
were  written  in  different  languages.  The  39  books  of  the 
Old  Testament  were  originally  written  in  the  Hebrew  lan- 
guage, except  small  portions,   as  Dan.  2:4  to  7 :  28 ;  Ezra 


2  Cor.  3  :  14;  Ex.  24  :  7;   Heb.  8:8,  13; — 9:15;   I  Mace.  1  :  57. 


10  THE    LANGUAGES. 

4:  8  to  6  :  18  and  7  :  12-26  and  Jer.  10  :  11.  which  were  writ- 
ten in  Aramaic.  The  Aramaic  has  been  described  as  a 
Syrian  Hebrew  spoken  to  the  Northeast  of  Palestine  in 
the  patriarchal  era,  while  the  Hebrew  is  regarded  as  the 
Canaanitish  speech,  used  in  the  same  era  and  later,  until 
it  was  gradually  displaced  by  the  Aramaic.  The  traditional 
view  that  the  Jews  abandoned  their  national  speech,  the 
Hebrew,  at  Babylon,  for  the  Aramaic,  is  now  held  to  be 
an  error.  The  change  was  gradual.  The  Aramaic  was 
the  popular  trade  language  of  Mesopotamia  and  the  region 
northeast  of  Palestine,  and  slowly  displaced  the  Hebrew, 
which  remained  in  use  as  a  sacred  language  in  religious 
services.  These  languages  belong  to  a  large  group  of 
dialects  known  as  the  Semitic  languages,  from  Shem, 
the  eldest  son  of  Noah,  and  include  the  Assyrian,  Baby- 
lonian, Arabic,  Hebrew,  Samaritan,  Aramaic,  Syriac,  Phoe- 
nician, Ethiopic,  and  several  other  tongues  as  yet  imper- 
fectly known  to  us.  The  apocryphal  books  were  written 
in  Greek  and  not  in  Hebrew,  but  were  sometimes  attached 
to  the  Old  Testament. 

The  27  books  of  the  New  Testament  were  written  in 
Greek,  after  that  language  had  passed  its  classic  stage,  and 
had  become  one  of  the  world-wide  tongues.  In  the  form 
or  dialect  found  in  the  New  Testament  it  is  usually  desig- 
nated Hellenistic  Greek. 

The  Hebrew  and  the  Greek  languages  therefore,  were 
not  in  the  "classic"  but  in  a  transition  state — a  con- 
dition of  flux  when  the  books  of  the  Bible  were  written. 
The  Hebrew  had  become  enriched  by  contact  with  the 
Egyptian,  Phoenician  and  Assyrian.  The  Greek,  by  the 
conquests  of  Alexander,  had  ceased  to  be  an  Attic  dialect, 
and  had   become   a  world-wide   tongue.      On  this  account 


GROWTH    AND    PRESERVATION.  11 

the  languages  had  become  more  flexible  and  more  copious  in 
expression,  yielding  themselves  more  readily  to  translations 
into  other  families  of  tongues,  without  that  marked  loss 
which  often  characterizes  literature  written  in  a  pure  classic 
dialect.  This  is  a  great  gain  in  a  text-book  of  religion  for 
the  whole  world. 

6.  Growth  and  Preservation. — The  books  of  the  Bible 
were  not  all  written  in  one  century.  From  the  time 
when  "  Moses  wrote  all  the  words  of  the  Lord''  in  the 
wilderness  to  the  close  of  the  apostolic  era,  when  John's 
recollections  and  the  revelation  of  Jesus  were  written,  was 
about  fifteen  centuries.  During  this  long  period  the  Bible 
was  slowly  growing  ;  the  prophetical,  historical  and  poetical 
books  were  added  to  the  collection  in  succession,  and 
finally  the  Gospels  and  the  other  apostolic  writings. 

These  were  carefully  preserved,  for  from  the  first  a  writ- 
ten copy  of  the  law  or  covenant  was  kept  in  an  ark  or  chest, 
which  was  on  this  account  called  "  the  ark  of  the  cove- 
nant. ' '  The  writing  was  frequently  spoken  of  as  "  the  books 
of  the  covenant."  ] 

Recent  explorations  assure  us  that  records  have  been  pre- 
served which  reach  back  upwards  of  4000  to  6000  years  be- 
fore the  Christian  era,  for  "  Moses  was  learned  in  ali 
the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians,"  2  while  the  Tel-el-Amarna 
letters  show  that  the  Egyptians  and  early  Assyrians  wrote 
back  and  forth  in  the  Assyrian  dialect,  so  it  is  quite  prob- 
able that  the  Assyrian  accounts  of  the  flood  and  of  other 
events  were  known  to  Moses. 

After  the  collection  of  sixty-six  sacred  books  was  com- 
pleted, copies  continued  to  be  made  in  writing  until  the 

'Ex.  24:7,  16;   34:28;   Deut.  29:21;   31:26;   Heb.  9:4. 
8  Acts  7  :  22. 


12  REVISED    ENGLISH    VERSIONS. 

invention  of  printing.  Since  that  time  copies  of  the  Scrip- 
tures have  been  multiplied  by  the  press,  until  it  is  asserted 
that  more  volumes  of  the  Bible  are  now  printed  every  year 
than  of  two  hundred  of  the  most  popular  books  of  our  own 
and  of  all  preceding  ages,  and  in  more  languages  of  the 
world  than  are  these  popular  works. 

Beginning  with  the  "Anglo-American,"  or  "  Revised 
Version,"  of  the  Bible  in  English,  let  us  inquire  "  how  the 
Bible  was  made,"  tracing  the  history  of  the  sixty-six 
sacred  books  up  the  stream  of  time  to  the  source,  or  be- 
ginning. 

This  method  is  in  accord  with  one  of  the  best  settled 
principles  of  education,  namely:  "  Begin  with  what  is 
known  and  proceed  to  what  is  unknown." 

7.  Revised  English  Versions. — Prominent  among  later 
translations  of  the  Bible  into  English  is  the  Anglo-Ameri- 
can version.  It  was  prepared  by  English  and  American 
scholars,  187 1  to  1881-5,  and  first  printed  by  the  Univer- 
sity presses  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  England,  placing  in 
the  text  the  readings  and  renderings  preferred  by  the 
British  scholars,  and  in  an  appendix  other  readings  and 
renderings  of  the  American  scholars,  to  which  the  British 
could  not  agree.  This  revised  New  Testament  was  issued 
in  May,  1881,  and  the  Revised  Old  Testament  in  1885. 
Thirteen  years  later,  1898,  the  same  presses  issued  in 
England  and  America  a  revised  Bible,  with  readings  and 
renderings  of  the  American  company  of  revision  that  had 
been  hitherto  placed  in  an  appendix,  now  incorporated 
into  the  text,  and  those  to  which  they  could  not  agree,  but 
which  the  British  scholars  preferred,  placed  in  an  appendix.1 

1  The  American  committee,  as  a  concession  to  the  University  presses, 
had  agreed  not  to  issue  an  edition  of  their  own  for  fourteen  years  after 


REVISED    ENGLISH    VERSIONS.  13 

l>  The  American  standard  edition  of  the  revised  Bible  " 
was  issued  in  1901  under  the  direction  of  the  surviving 
members  of  the  committee  of  revision  and  their  associates. 
The  American  "  Standard  Edition  "  combines  the  old  ver- 
sicular  with  the  new  paragraph  divisions,  and  gives  new 
running  topical  headlines  at  the  top  of  the  page.  Thus 
the  reader  has  the  advantage  of  the  arrangement  into  sec- 
tions or  paragraphs,  and  also  the  division  into  chapters 
and  verses  distinctly  marked  in  the  text,  without  breaking 
up  or  seriously  marring  the  division  into  paragraphs. 

Moreover,  the  American  committee  and  its  associates 
have  had  time  fully  to  consider  the  various  criticisms  and 
objections  to  the  revised  version  as  heretofore  published. 

Certain  readings  and  renderings,  receiving  a  decided  ma- 
jority often,  but  not  the  two-thirds  vote  required  to 'replace 
the  text,  will  be  found  in  the  margin  opposite  the  text, 
rather  than  in  an  appendix  or  in  foot-notes.  These  mar- 
ginal readings  sometimes  express  the  real  preferences  and 
views  of  a  majority  of  the  revisers,  and  hence,  in  fact,  of 
the  committee,  but  could  not  go  into  the  text  under  the 
rule  requiring  a  vote  of  two-thirds  of  the  members. 

The  revision  is  called  the  Anglo-American,  because  it  was 
originally  the  joint  work  of  British  and  American  scholars. 
Each  committee,  however,  worked  independently,  then 
compared  and  collated  the  results.  The  English  Bible, 
known  as  the  "  King  James  Version,"  was  made  in  161 1, 
and  is  also  called  the  "Authorized  Version,"  because  it 
was  supposed  (but  erroneously)   to  have  been  approved  or 

the  first  issue  of  the  revised  Bible.  This  implied  also  that  the  British 
presses  would  refrain  from  forestalling  an  edition  by  the  American 
committee  containing  their  preferred  readings  in  the  text,  at  least  for 
America.  The  American  committee  defrayed  their  own  expenses,  re- 
ceiving no  allowance  therefor  from  the  British  University  presses. 


14  REVISION    PROPOSED. 

authorized  by  royal  authority  of  James  I.  of  England.  He 
did  propose  (1604)  to  have  it  "  ratified  by  royal  authority  " 
when  completed,  but  this  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
carried  out.  It  is  called  the  "  Common  Version  "  because 
it  is  the  one  most  commonly  used  by  all  English-speaking 
peoples. 

8.  A  Revision  Proposed. — The  Anglo-American  ver- 
sion is  a  revision  of  the  English  translation  of  the  Bible 
made  under  James  I.  in  161 1.  The  revision  was  suggested 
in  1856  by  Prof.  W.  Selwyn,  and  again  by  Bishops  Wil- 
berforce,  Ellicott  and  Ollivant  in  1870.  In  that  year  the 
Convocation  of  Canterbury  appointed  a  committee  of  16 
(8  from  each  house),  with  authority  to  invite  other  eminent 
Biblical  scholars  to  join  them  in  a  revision  of  the  Bible. 
The  Convocation  of  York,  England,  declined  to  join  in  the 
revision,  but  eminent  scholars  of  Great  Britian  and  America 
engaged  in  the  work.  American  scholars  from  nine  de- 
nominations formed  a  committee  in  1871  to  co-operate 
with  British  scholars  in  revising  the  translation  of  the 
Bible  of  161 1. 

The  whole  number  of  scholars  engaged  upon  the  Revised 
version  was  101,  of  whom  67  were  British  and  34  American. 
Ten  years  after  the  work  was  begun  the  active  members 
were  79,  of  whom  52  were  British  and  27  American.  By 
1883  the  British  committee  had  lost  52  members  by  death 
and  resignation  and  the  American  company  23. 

9.  The  Literary  Event  of  the  Century. — The  issue  of  the 
Revised  New  Testament  in  England  May  17,  in  America 
May  22,  1881,  aroused  a  profound  interest.  Millions  of 
copies  were  sold  in  a  few  months.  Two  millions  were 
sold  in  London,  half  a  million  in  New  York  and  Philadel- 
phia.    The   entire  text  of  the  revised  New  Testament  was 


PAC-SIMIIJS  OF  TITLE   PAGE  TYNDALE'S  NEW  TESTAMENT. 


PLAN    OF    REVISION.  15 

telegraphed  to  two  newspapers  in  Chicago,  and  printed 
complete  in  their  morning  issues.  More  than  twenty  re- 
printed editions  at  once  appeared  in  the  United  States. 
For  once,  popular  interest  in  the  newspaper  was  supplanted 
by  that  in  the  revised  New  Testament.  It  was  sought  by 
crowds  at  bookstores,  and  news  stands,  was  hawked  on  the 
streets,  read  on  the  cars,  in  the  omnibus  and  in  the  stage- 
coach. But  when  the  revised  Old  Testament  appeared  in 
May,  1885,  it  awakened  comparatively  little  interest.  Pub- 
lic curiosity  and  interest  had  apparently  exhausted  itself  on 
the  revised  New  Testament.  The  revised  version  of  the 
apocrypha  appeared  in  1896.  The  popular  demand  for 
the  revised  version  is  comparatively  small,  and  has  not  in- 
creased for  ten  years  past. 

10.  Why  Revise  King  James  Version? — (1)  To  re- 
move obsolete  words  and  phrases — as  "let "  in  the  sense 
of  "  hinder  ;  "  "  ear,"  meaning  "  to  plow  ;  "  "  prevent  "  in 
the  sense  of  "  going  before;  "  "carriages,"  meaning  "lug- 
gage "  or  "  baggage. "  (2)  To  give  the  sense  of  the  origi- 
nal Greek  and  Hebrew  with  greater  precision.  (3)  To 
conform  to  a  purer  original  text.  More  than  500  ancient 
manuscripts,  many  ancient  versions,  and  works  of  nearly 
100  of  the  Christian  fathers,  have  been  examined  and  col- 
lated for  use  in  perfecting  the  original  text  since  161 1. 
(4)  To  secure  greater  uniformity  in  the  rendering  of  the 
same  words  and  phrases,  removing  artificial  distinctions, 
and  restoring  distinctions  that  were  obliterated  or  obscured. 

11.  Plafi  of  Revision. — The  rules  guiding  the  revisers 
were  conservative.  They  were  to  make  "as  few  altera- 
tions as  possible"  in  the  Authorized  Version,  "  consist- 
ently with  faithfulness."  "To  limit,  as  far  as  possible, 
the  expression  of  these   alterations  to  the  language  of  the 


16  CHANGES    MADE. 

Authorized  and  earlier  English  versions."  The  original 
text  (Hebrew  and  Greek)  adopted  to  "be  that  for  which 
the  evidence  is  decidedly  preponderating."  "To  make  or 
retain  no  change  in  the  final  revision  except  two-thirds  of 
those  present  approve."  No  radical  changes  could  be 
made  under  the  rules,  much  less  could  an  essentially  new 
translation  be  introduced  under  cover  of  a  revision.  Those 
who  criticise  the  English  of  the  revision  as  sometimes  in- 
felicitous, admit  that  the  new  renderings  generally  repre- 
sent the  original  more  accurately  than  previous  English 
versions. 

12.  Changes  Made. — About  36,000  changes  in  the 
Authorized  Version  of  the  New  Testament  were  made, 
nearly  6,000  of  which  were  due  to  changes  made  in  the 
Greek  text.1  The  great  majority  of  these  changes  are  triv- 
ial, or  of  minor  importance.2  Over  900  American  sug- 
gestions in  the  New  Testament  were  adopted  by  the  Brit- 
ish revisers. 

A  large  number  of  changes  proposed  by  the  American 
committee  were  not  adopted  by  the  British  committee. 
These  were  greatly  reduced  by  mutual  concessions,  but 
many  remained  which  the  American  scholars  felt  impor- 
tant. These  only  are  noted  in  the  appendix  to  the  Eng- 
lish Revised  Version.     This  appendix,  therefore,   does  not 

1  The  "  Guardian,"  England,  reported  the  changes  in  the  English  text 
as  36,191,  an  average  of  4^  changes  for  every  one  of  the  7,959  verses. 
The  changes  in  the  Greek  text  are  5,788,  according  to  Dr.  Scriv- 
ener's Notes  and  Canon  Cook's  statement.  Dean  Burgon  found  thirty 
changes  in  thirty-eight  words  in  2  Pet.  1  :  5-7.  Sixteen  entire  verses 
are  omitted  by  the  revisers,  and  122  sentences  or  parts  of  sentences 
disappear.     Ten  new  clauses,  very  brief,  are  added. 

2  The  Authorized  Version  of  the  new  Testament  has  181,253  words. 
The  Revised  Version  has  459  words  less,  or  180,794,  of  which  154,526 
are  retained  from  the  Authorized  Version.  See  R.  Wendell,  Revised 
New  Testament. 


MERITS   AND   DEFECTS.  17 

give  all  the  preferences  of  the  American  committee  in  either 
the  New  or  the  Old  Testament.  In  the  book  of  Job  the 
Americans  proposed  1,781  changes,  while  the  British  made 
only  1,004.* 

13.  Merits  and  Defects  of  the  English  Revision. — The 
improvements  claimed  for  the  Revised  Version  are  :  (1)  An 
older  and  purer  Greek  text  for  the  New  Testament ;  (2)  re- 
moval of  errors,  inconsistencies,  artificial  distinctions  and 
obsolete  words  and  phrases  in  the  translation  ;  (3)  restor- 
ation of  real  distinctions  that  were  obscured  ;  (4)  arrange- 
ment of  the  text  in  paragraphs,  while  noting  the  old  chap- 
ter and  verse  divisions  ;  (5)  arranging  and  printing  the 
poetical  books  of  the  Old  Testament  as  poetry,  and  in 
general  a  closer  conformity  to  the  original. 

The  objections  to  the  Revision  are  mainly:  (1)  Omis- 
sions, or  frequent  changes,  in  passages  long  familiar,  and 
of  forms  of  expression  deeply  endeared  to  the  Christian 
heart.  (2)  Unnecessary  changes  in  the  Greek  text 
and  changes  in  the  translation  not  required  by  faith- 
fulness to  the  original  text,  some  of  them  not  being 
good  idiomatic  English.  (3)  Want  of  uniformity  in 
rendering    the    same    idiomatic    phrases   of    the   original 

1  Among  the  more  important  American  renderings  which  the  Eng- 
lish revisers  were  unwilling  to  adopt  were:  (1)  "  demon  "  or  "  demons" 
for  "  devil  "  or  "  devils  "  in  such  phrases  as  "  to  cast  out  devils."  The 
Bible  speaks  of  many  evil  spirits,  but  of  only  one  devil ;  (2)  "  who" 
or  "  that"  in  place  of  "  which  "  when  applied  to  persons,  and  to  substi- 
tute modern  forms  of  speech  for  such  archaic  forms  as  "  wot,"  "  wist," 
"hale;"  (3)  "sheol"  wherever  it  occurs  in  the  Hebrew  text  for  "grave," 
"the  pit,"  and  "hell,"  and  omit  these  words  from  the  margin;  also 
put  "Jehovah"  where  found  in  Hebrew,  for  the  "Lord"  and  "God;" 
(4)  a  more  accurate  designation  of  coins;  (5)  omit  the  title  "Saint" 
and  "Apostle"  in  the  headings  to  New  Testament  books.  See  "Ap- 
pendix" to  Revised  Testament,  and  Companion  to  Revised  Version 
by  A.  Roberts,  Am.  ed.,  pp.  177  ff.  Also  Companion  to  revised  N.  T, 
by  Schaff. 


18  tTSE   OF    REVtSED    VERSION. 

text.1  (5)  Disregarding  the  breaks  of  chapter  and  verse. 
Marking  the  chapters  and  verses  in  the  margin  does  not 
overcome  this  objection.  The  eye  misses  the  familiar 
breaks  in  the  text,  and  cannot  quickly  catch  the  verse  or 
clause  desired  for  reference.  The  same  objection  lies 
against  the  omission  of  chapter  headings,  and  of  running 
headlines  at  the  top  of  each  page. 

It  has  been  alleged  that  while  the  revision,  as  a  gram- 
matical word  for  word  version,  is  closer  to  the  original,  it 
is  wanting  in  the  perspicuous,  smooth,  idiomatic  English 
so  characteristic  of  the  King  James  Version. 

14.  Use  of  the  Revised  Version. — The  Revised  Version 
is  not  gaining  in  circulation  among  the  people.  It  is  used 
by  students  and  scholars,  and  is  quoted  in  Sabbath-school 
lesson  helps,  in  recent  commentaries  and  critical  works. 
It  is  also  read  by  some  pastors  and  in  some  churches.  But 
in  the  twenty  years  it  has  been  before  the  public,  it  has 
not  won  its  way  into  general  favor  with  the  common  peo- 


1  For  example,  "God's  throne"  changed  to  "  the  throne  of  God." 
Matt.  5  :  34.  "  Whale's  belly  "  changed  to  "the  belly  of  the  whale;" 
"  his  footstool  "  changed  to  "the  footstool  of  his  feet."  Matt.  5:35. 
See  Mark  12:36.  ''To  Annas"  in  John  18:13,  but  "to  the 
house  of  Caiaphas  "  in  Matt.  26:  57  (the  Greek  idiom  the  same  in 
both  cases).  So,  "  Therefore  when  "  changed  to  "  When,  therefore," 
the  Greek  order  being  the  same;  "at  home  "  for  a  similar  Greek 
idiom  is  changed  to  "in  the  house"  sometimes.  See  Acts  5  142; 
20:  20;  I  Cor.  II:  34;  14:  35,  etc.  Variant  renderings  also  "in 
heaven"  and  "in  the  heavens."  Also  variant  renderings  of  Greek 
tenses,  especially  the  aorist,  by  the  English  present,  imperfect,  perfect, 
and  also  pluperfect,  sometimes  by  three  different  English  tenses  in  one 
paragraph.  See  Mark  5  :  39-41.  Compare  also  Rom.  11:3,  32,  34; 
Luke  I:  46,55,  as  English  perfect ;  Mark  6:  17;  Matt.  8:  1,5; 
Acts  23:14,  as  English  pluperfect;  Matt.  11:19;  John  15:9; 
Philemon  19,  as  English  present;  Acts  20:34  as  English  im- 
perfect. So  in  John  18:  23  the  English  imperfect  is  used,  while  in 
John  3:  33,34  the  English  perfect,  and  in  many  other  instances, 
though  the  Greek  is  the  same  tense  in  these  cases. 


KING  JAMES,   or    AUTHORIZED   VERSION.  19 

pie.  Will  it  win  general  acceptance?  It  required  from 
thirty  to  fifty  years  for  the  King  James  Version  to  displace 
the  older  Bishop's  and  Genevan  Versions.  But  now,  in  an 
age  of  steam  and  electricity,  events  move  quickly;  ten 
years  bring  greater  changes  than  fifty  years  did  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  In  view  of  this,  the  prospect  for  any 
edition  of  the  present  Revised  Version,  with  its  acknowl- 
edged excellencies,  is,  that  it  will  continue  to  be  a  version 
for  students  and  scholars,  but  not  for  the  people. 

"  The  American  Standard  Edition  of  the  Revised  Bible  " 
looks  for  a  rather  better  reception.  For  it  has  profited 
by  the  public  judgment  of  twenty  years,  and  has  cor- 
rected some  errors  and  infelicities  that  have  been  freely 
pointed  out,  and  has  added  not  a  few  features  and  excel- 
lencies not  possible  in  1881-1885.  The  multiplied  attempts 
to  produce  an  acceptable  version  of  the  New  Testament 
in  English  since  the  Anglo-American  revision  was  first 
suggested  indicate  a  strong  desire  for  some  improvement 
of  the  Common  Version.  This  restlessness  continues. 
The  revisions  so  far  put  forth  do  not  allay  it.  But  error 
and  prejudice  will  be  finally  overcome,  and  some  changes 
will  ultimately  be  made  that  will  be  satisfactory. 

15.  The  "King  James"  or  Authorized  Version. — This 
version  of  the  Bible  was  pi*oposed  at  a  conference  of  the 
Conformists  and  the  Puritans  of  England,  held  at  Hamp- 
ton Court,  January  14,  16  and  18,  1604.  King  James  I. 
presided  over  the  conference,  and  Dr.  John  Reynolds,  a 
leader  of  the  Puritans  and  President  of  Corpus  Christi 
College,  Oxford,  suggested  the  desirableness  of  a  better 
translation  or  version  of  the  Bible.  This  pleased  the 
king,  who,  in  July,  1604,  named  fifty-four  learned  men  as 
translators.     The  work  was  delayed   three  years,  and  the 


20  JULES    OUIDINfi    TRANSLATORS. 

lists  preserved  give  only  forty-seven  scholars  who  actually 
entered  upon  the  work.  They  were  divided  into  six  com- 
panies, eacli  having  a  portion  of  the  Bible  (including  the 
Apocrypha)  to  translate.  Two  companies  met  at  West- 
minister, two  at  Oxford,  and  two  at  Cambridge. 

To  the  first  company  at  Westminster  (ten  members) 
were  assigned  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  from  Genesis 
to  2  Kings  inclusive  ;  to  the  second  company  (seven  mem- 
bers) the  Epistles  of  the  New  Testament ;  to  the  first  com- 
pany at  Oxford  (seven  members)  the  prophetical  books 
from  Isaiah  to  Malachi  ;  to  the  second  company  (eight 
members)  the  Gospels,  Acts  and  Revelation  ;  to  the  first 
company  at  Cambridge  (eight  members)  the  other  Old 
Testament  books ;  to  the  second  company  (seven  members) 
all  the  Old  Testament  Apocryphal  books. 

Some  of  the  most  eminent  men  of  learning  in  Great 
Britain  were  among  these  translators.  Bishop  Andrewes, 
Dr.  H.  Saravia  ("  the  greatest  of  Hebraists  "),  Dr.  Lively, 
Drs.  Richardson,  Spaldinge,  Kilby  and  Smith  (who  *'had 
Hebrew  at  his  fingers'  ends")  were  noted  for  Hebrew 
learning  ;  Bedwell  and  Brett  were  famous  Arabic  scholars, 
besides  many  others  equally  famed  for  their  skill  in  Greek 
and  in  several  other  tongues,  shared  in  this  translation. 
Seven  of  these  were  made  bishops,  and  seventeen  or  eigh- 
teen received  church  preferments. 

1 6.  Rules  Guiding  the  Translators,  1611. — The  trans- 
lation was  to  conform  to  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  texts ; 
but  the  then  current  Bishops'  Version  was  to  be  "as  little 
altered  as  the  truth  of  the  original  will  permit."  The 
older  translations  to  be  used  when  they  agree  better  with 
the  text  than  the  "Bishops'  Bible"  were  "  Tyndale's, 
Coverdale's,    Matthew's,    Whitchurch's    [Cranmer's]    and 


KING    JAMES    VERSION    A    REVISION.  21 

Geneva."  No  compensation  was  provided  except  possible 
church  preferment  and  free  entertainment  in  the  colleges. 
Those  who  completed  the  final  revision  at  London  were 
paid  their  expenses,  about  thirty  shillings  each,  a  week, 
probably  provided  by  R.  Barker,  who  gave  ^3500  for  the 
right  to  print  the  version.  Very  little  is  definitely  known 
of  the  methods  pursued  by  the  translators.  Some  hints 
are  given  in  their  preface  and  in  the  delegates'  report  to 
the  Synod  of  Dort,  1618,  and  in  John  Selden's  account. 
Selden  says:  "That  part  of  the  Bible  was  given  to  him 
who  was  most  excellent  in  such  a  tongue,  and  then  they 
met  together,  and  one  read  the  translation,  the  rest  hold- 
ing in  their  hands  some  Bible,  either  of  the  learned  tongues 
or  French,1  Spanish,2  Italian3  and  so  forth;  if  they  found 
any  fault,  they  spoke;  if  not,  he  read  on."  When  a  com- 
pany had  passed  on  the  translation,  it  was  sent  to  the  other 
companies  for  approval,  and  then  referred  to  the  final 
revisers. 

17.  King  James  Version  a  Revision. — The  translators 
themselves  say  of  their  work:  "We  never  thought  from 
the  beginning  that  we  should  need  to  make  a  new  transla- 
tion," .  .  .  "  nor  a  bad  translation  good,"  but  "a  good  one 
better,"  and  their  rules  show  that  they  were  aiming  simply 
to  make  a  revision.     This  also  appears  from  the  title-page.4 

The  final  revision  of  the  work  of  the  King  James  trans- 


1  Olivetan's,  1535  revised  at  Geneva. 

2  DeReyna's,  1569,  and  DeValera,  1602. 

3  Diodati's,  1607. 

*  "  The  Holy  Bible,  containing  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New. 
Newly  translated  out  of  the  original  tongues;  and  with  the  former 
translations  diligently  compared  and  revised."  Some  English  Bibles 
add  :  "  By  His  Majesty's  special  commandment."  "  Appointed  to  be 
read  in  churches."  "  Imprinted  at  London  by  Robert  Barker,  printer 
to  the  King's  most  Excellent  Majesty.     Anno  Dom.,  1611." 


22  WHY    CALLED    AUTHORIZED    VERSION. 

lators  was  committed  to  six  of  their  number  (some  say 
twelve),  who  spent  nine  months  in  London  upon  it,  and 
in  correcting  the  printer's  proofs  ;  Dr.  Smith  and  Bishop 
Bilson  seeing  it  through  the  press.  It  was  issued  in  a 
black  letter  folio  volume  by  R.  Barker.1  An  octavo  and 
also  a  quarto  edition  was  issued  in  1612.  The  fulsome 
dedication  to  King  James  is  still  printed,  but  the  learned  and 
somewhat  pedantic,  though  very  suggestive,  preface  by  Dr. 
Miles  Smith  unhappily  is  now  never  found  in  English  Bible>. 
18.  Why  Called  "Authorized  Version." — The  King 
James  Version  is  popularly,  though  not  accurately,  called 
the  "  Authorized  Version."  On  the  title-page  as  now 
printed  in  England  is  a  notice :  "Appointed  to  be  read  in 
churches."  But  this  was  not  on  the  first  edition  of  the 
New  Testament  of  1611,  nor  on  some  (8)  editions  of  the 
Bible  issued  in  the  first  five  years  after  the  issue  of  the 
King  James  Version.  The  most  diligent  search  of  officials 
and  scholars  has  failed  to  find  any  evidence  that  the  version 
was  ever  publicly  sanctioned  in  161 1  by  convocation,  privy 
council,  parliament  or  by  the  king.  It  gained  the  title 
possibly  because  the  work  was  ordered  by  the  king.  The 
version  by  its  excellencies  gradually  displaced  the  existing 
versions  (the  Bishops'  and  the  Genevan),  and  won  its  way 
to  popular  acceptance  on  its  superior  merits.  But  the  con- 
test was  a  long  one.  The  King  James  Version  was  attacked 
for  lack  of  fidelity  to  the   Hebrew  and   Greek  text.     Ro- 

1  There  were  in  fact  three  issues,  each  claimed  to  be  the  first,  called 
the  He-Bible,  the  She-Bible,  and  the  1613-1611  edition,  that  is,  the 
Old  Testament  title-page  dated  1613,  and  the  New  Testament  161 1. 
The  "He"  and  "She"  editions  gain  their  names  from  the  varied 
reading  of  Ruth  3  :  15.  One  reads  "and  he  went  into  the  city/'  the 
other  "and  she  went  into  the  city.M  Some  copies  have  a  steel-plate 
and  some  a  wood-cut  title,  or  a  wood-block  title  used  in  the  Bishops' 
Bible  of  1602. 


FAC-SIMILE  (REDUCED)  OF  TITLE  PAGE  OF  THE  GREAT  BIBLE. 
Design  Attributed  to   Hans  Holbein. 


CHANGES    IN    VERSION    OF    1611.  23 

manists  likewise  accused  it  of  misrepresenting  Scripture  to 
favor  Protestantism.  Arminians  charged  it  with  a  Calvin- 
istic  bias,  Puritans  with  a  leaning  to  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, and  others  with  favoring  monarchical  notions.  (See 
i  Pet.  2  :  13.) 

19.  Use  of  King  James  Version. — The  Genevan  Version 
continued  to  be  used  in  private,  and  in  some  churches  for 
over  twenty  years  after  the  issue  of  the  King  James  Ver- 
sion. The  Bishops'  Version  was  also  widely  used  in  the 
Church  of  England  services.  Five  editions,  at  least,  of 
the  New  Testament  in  the  Bishops'  Version  appeared  from 
1608-1618,  though  no  edition  of  the  Bishops'  Bible  com- 
plete was  issued  after  1608.  But  editions  of  the  Genevan 
Version  continued  to  be  issued  up  to  1644.  Texts  were 
taken  from  the  Genevan  and  other  older  versions  by 
bishops  and  by  many  in  high  authority  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century  after  1611.  So  late  as  1653  a  bill  was  proposed  in 
Parliament  for  the  appointment  of  a  committee  to  revise 
the  English  Bible.  But  Parliament  was  soon  after  dis- 
solved and  the  project  died.  The  house  of  Stuart  was 
restored  to  the  rule  of  England,  and  the  King  James  Ver- 
sion of  161 1,  after  some  changes,  was  left  to  win  its  way 
into  favor  over  all  previous  versions,  and  to  become  the 
popular  English  version  since  that  period. 

20.  Changes  in  the  Version  0/161 1. — Comparing  a  com- 
mon English  Bible  of  now  with  a  copy  of  the  first  issue  of 
161 1,  marked  differences  are  at  once  seen.  Not  only  is  a 
difference  seen  in  the  forms  of  the  letters  and  in  the  spell- 
ing of  many  words,  but  in  the  readings  of  numerous 
passages.1     After  the  folio  edition  of  161 1,  The  King  James 

1  For  instances  of  this,  see  Scrivener's  Preface  to  the  Cambridge 
Paragraph  Bible.  Even  the  folio  edition  of  1613  differs  from  that  of 
161 1  in  over  four  hundred  places. 


24  NO    STANDARD    EDITION    OF 

Version  appeared  in  an  octavo  form  in  1612,  and  in  an 
edition  omitting  the  apocryphal  books  in  1629.  The  errors 
of  the  earlier  issues  were  corrected  in  editions  of  1616,  but 
especially  of  1629  and  1638.1  Bishop  Lloyd's  edition,  of 
London,  1701,  3  vols.,  folio,  first  gave  chronological  dates 
in  the  margin,  based  chiefly  upon  the  chronology  of 
Ussher.  Additional  marginal  references  were  inserted  by 
Dr.  Paris  in  1762,  and  by  Dr.  Blayney  in  1769,  in  all 
about  60,000  references.  Some  words  are  put  in  italics  in 
our  Bibles  generally,  but  not  always,  to  show  that  they  have 
no  equivalent  words  in  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  texts,  but 
were  added  by  the  translator  to  make  complete  sense.  These 
words  were  marked  by  brackets  in  Coverdale's  Testament, 
1538,  by  small  Roman  type  in  King  James  Version,  1611, 
but  later  by  italics.2 

21.  No  Standard  Edition  of  the  King  James  Version. — 
The  Committee  on  Versions  (1851-56)  of  the  American 
Bible  Society  found  twenty-four  thousand  variations  in  six 
different  editions  of  the  Authorized  Version,  and  recom- 
mended improvements,  which  were  adopted,  including  re- 
visions of  the  chapter  headings.     So  great  was  the  popular 

1  The  errors  of  some  editions  gave  them  celebrity,  as  the  "  Vinegar 
Bible  "  (a  splendid  and  costly  one),  Oxford,  1 7 17,  so  called  from  a 
misprint  of  vinegar-  for  vineyard  in  the  heading  of  Luke  20.  The 
"Wicked  Bible"  (8vo.,  1631)  was  so  called  from  the  omission  of 
"not"  in  the  seventh  commandment,  and  Laud  fined  the  king's 
printers  ,£300  for  their  carelessness  in  printing  it.  A  copy  of  the 
"  Wicked  Bible  "  is  in  the  Lenox  Library,  New  York.  There  is  a 
German  Bible,  1731,  with  a  similar  blunder.  The  "Breeches  Bible  " 
was  so  called  from  a  reading  of  the  Genevan  version,  "made  them- 
selves breeches."  Gen.  3:  7. 

2  There  is  a  notable  exception  in  the  King  James  Version,  1  John 
2:  23,  last  clause;  this  is  in  italics  in  our  common  Bibles  because  it 
was  not  found  in  some  of  the  old  Greek  manuscripts  used  by  the  trans- 
lators, but  the  genuineness  of  the  clause  has  since  been  proved  beyond 
question. 


THE    KING    JAMES    VERSION.  25 

opposition  to  these  changes,  that  the  society  was  compelled 
to  discontinue  issuing  the  amended  edition  and  return  to 
the  old  issues,  with  all  their  variations  and  imper- 
fections. This,  however,  shows  how  strong  a  hold  the 
Bible  has  upon  the  popular  heart.  We  have  therefore  no 
standard  edition  of  the  "Authorized  Version"  of  the 
English  Bible.1  The  King  James  Version  of  the  English 
Bible  belongs  to  the  golden  age  of  English  literature,  the 
age  of  Shakespeare  and  Milton  and  the  greatest  of  English 
classics.  It  possesses  the  strength  of  the  Saxon,  the  grace 
of  the  Norman  French,  and  the  dignity  of  the  Latin,  har- 
moniously mingled  into  vigorous  and  perspicuous  English. 


1  The  octavo  edition  (bourgeois)  of  the  American  Bible  Society  is 
nearest  to  a  standard  of  any  American  edition. 


CHAPTER   II. 

EARLY    ENGLISH    VERSIONS THE    DOUAI,    BISHOPS',    GENEVA, 

•  GREAT  BIBLE,  MATTHFW's,  TAVERNER'S,  TYNDALE'S, 
WYCKLIFFE'S,  ENGLISH  AND  SAXON  ;  LANGUAGE  OR  VO- 
CABULARY ;    LEADING    FACTS. 

i.  The  Common  Version  a  Growth. — Our  common  Eng- 
lish Bible,  the  King  James  or  so-called  "Authorized  Ver- 
sion," is  the  outgrowth  of  many  preceding  versions,  and 
the  fruit  of  more  than  two  centuries  of  labor  by  many 
eminent  Biblical  scholars. 

2.  The  Douai  Version. — The  great  eagerness  of  the 
people  for  the  Bible  in  their  own  tongue  compelled  the 
Romanists  to  issue  a  version,  as  they  state,  "  specially  for 
the  discovery  of  the  corruptions  of  divers  late  translations 
and  for  clearing  the  controversies  in  religion  of  these 
days."1  The  New  Testament  was  published  at  Rheims, 
1582.  The  Old  Testament  was  translated  about  the  same 
time,  but  was  not  published  until  1609-10  at  Douai  or 
Douay,  and  the  Douai  Bible  complete  at  Rouen,  1633-35. 
The  work  is  believed  to  owe  its  origin  to  William  Allen, 
one  of  the  founders  of  the  college  at  Douai.  The  transla- 
tion is  from  the  Latin  Vulgate,  and  was  made  by  Gregory 
Martin  and  three  or  four  other  English  scholars.  Modern 
editions  of  the  Douai  Version  differ  widely  from  the  orig- 
inal version.  Cardinal  Wiseman  says,  "  To  call  the  Roman 
Catholic  version  now  in  use  the  version  of  Rheims  and 
Douai  is  an  abuse  of  terms.     It  has  been  altered  and  mod- 


1  From  title-page,  Rhemish  New  Testament,  1582. 
(26) 


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EARLY    ENGLISH    VERSIONS.  27 

ified  till  scarcely  any  verse  remains  as  it  was  originally 
published."  l  The  Roman  Church  has  never  been  friendly 
to  vernacular  translations  of  the  Bible,  and  hence  the  Douai 
Version  has  had  a  comparatively  small  circulation.  Though 
it  may  have  contributed  some  minor  improvements  to  the 
King  James  Version,  it  is  not  in  the  line  of  succession  of 
that  version.  The  next  link  immediately  back  of  the  King 
James  Version  is  the  Bishops'  Bible. 

3.  The  Bishops'  Bible  was  prepared  by  Matthew  Parker, 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  ten  or  fifteen  men  of  learn- 
ing, most  of  whom  were  bishops;  hence  its  title  Bishops' 
Bible.  It  was  completed,  and  a  copy  presented  to  Queen 
Elizabeth,  in  1568.  Parker  issued  a  revised  edition  in 
1572.     This  edition  is  also  sometimes  called  Parker' s  Bible. 

4.  Why  Made. — The  Genevan  Version  (seep.  21)  with 
brief  explanatory  notes  had  become  the  Bible  of  the  com- 
mon people,  having  displaced  the  Great  Bible  of  Cranmer, 
used  by  the  clergy  and  in  the  church  services.  As  the  Great 
Bible  was  not  as  accurate  a  translation  as  the  Genevan,  and 
could  not  regain  its  former  popularity,  a  new  version  was 
attempted  which  would  be  more  acceptable  to  royalists 
than  the  Calvinistic  and  republican  ideas  reflected  in  some 
of  the  comments  of  the  version  by  the  Puritan  reformers 
of  Geneva. 

5.  The  Bishops'  Bible  was  completed  in  about  three 
years.  The  rules  laid  down  by  "Parker  were  conservative 
and  simple  :  (O  To  follow  the  common  English  translation 
used  in  the  churches,  except  where  it  varied  from  the  orig- 
inal ;  (2)  to  use  chapter  and  verse  divisions  as  in  Pagninus 
and  Munster ;  (3)  to  make  no  "bitter  notes;"  (4)  to 
change  indelicate  words  to  "  more  convenient  terms."     It 


Wiseman's  Essays,  vol.  i.  pp.  73-75. 


28  EARLY  ENGLISH  VERSIONS. 

contained  marginal  notes,  references  and  brief  comments 
explanatory  of  the  text.1 

6.  Several  editions  of  the  Bishops'  Bible  were  issued  ; 
the  last  in  1608.  In  15  71  Convocation  ordered  that  every 
archbishop  and  bishop  should  have  a  copy  of  this  version, 
<(  of  the  largest  volume,"  placed  in  his  hall  or  dining-room 
for  the  use  of  servants  or  strangers,  and  also  a  copy  in 
every  cathedral,  and  if  possible  in  every  church.  This  was 
clearly  at  that  time  the  so-called  "Authorized  Version." 
It  supplanted  the  Great  Bible,  but  the  Genevan  held  its 
place  with  the  people. 

7.  The  Genevan  Version  was  made  by  English  reform- 
ers who  found  a  refuge  in  Geneva  from  the  persecution  of 
Queen  Mary,  and  was  published  in  1560. 

8.  Genevan  New  Testament,  1557. — Three  years  earlier 
a  translation  of  the  New  Testament  into  English  was  made 
at  Geneva  by  William  Whittingham  (aided  perhaps  by 
others),  who  had  married  Calvin's  sister. 

9.  The  Genevan  Bible  was  a  distinct  work,  begun  in 
1558  and  completed  in  1560.  The  translation  was  the 
joint  work  of  a  company  of  learned  men,  among  whom 
were  Coverdale,  Knox,  Whittingham,  Goodman  and  Cole. 
But  the  translation  of  the  New  Testament  in  the  Genevan 
Bible  was  a  careful  revision  of  the  Genevan  New  Testament 

of  1557- 

10.  Popular  Merits  of  the  Genevan  Bible. — (1)  The 
translation  was  from  the  best  original  texts  then  known. 
(2)  Its  form  was  a  neat  quarto  instead  of  the  clumsy  folio. 


1  Some  of  the  comments  are  curious:  Rom.  II  :  8  reads,  "  the  spirit 
of  remorse;"  the  comment  is,  "pricking  and  unquietness  of  conscience." 
Isa.  66  :  3  reads,  "  he  that  killeth  a  sheep  for  me  knetcheth  a  dog  ;  "  the 
note  explains,  "that  is,  cutteth  off  a  dog's  neck;"  a  much-needed 
note  ! 


teARLV  English  versions.  29 

(3)  Explanatory  notes  on  hard  texts  (Swiss  in  doctrine  and 
politics)  were  given  in  the  margin.  (4)  The  type  was  clear 
Roman  in  place  of  the  unsightly  black  letter  formerly 
used.  (5)  The  text  was  broken  into  chapters  and  verses 
after  Stephens'  Greek  Testament  ( 155 1)  and  Pagninus' 
Latin  (1528),  but  adding  numerals  at  the  beginning  of 
each  verse.  (6)  Chapter  headings,  references  and  (in 
Henry's  edition,  1578)  a  Bible  dictionary  of  value. 

11.  A  careful  revision  was  made  by  L.  Tomson,  in  1576, 
and  the  Genevan  was  the  first  Bible  printed  in  Scotland, 
1579.  It  was  the  first  complete  Englisli  translation  of  the 
Bible  direct  from  the  Hebrew  and  Greek}  The  comments 
were  lucid,  vigorous,  sometimes  dogmatic,  but  generally 
practical.  It  quickly  gained  a  wide  popularity.  At  the 
accession  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Mary,  the  public  use  of 
the  English  Bible  was  forbidden  in  churches  ;  all  copies 
that  could  be  found  were  burnt  (with  an  army  of  martyrs), 
and  not  a  single  Bible  was  printed  in  England  during  her 
five  years'  rule.  When  Elizabeth  became  queen  in  1558, 
the  Bible  was  again  freely  read.  Not  less  than  130  editions 
of  the  Genevan  Bible  were  printed,  over  90  of  them  before 
161 1.  It  retained  its  popularity  for  a  generation  after  the 
King  James  Version  appeared.2 

12.  The  Great  Bible  (1539)  was  edited  by  Miles  Cover- 
dale  under   direction   of  Thomas    Crumwell.     Paris   was 


1  The  Old  Testament  shows  that  Coverdale's  Great  Bible  was  care- 
fully consulted,  and  the  New  Testament  that  Tyndale's  Version  was 
followed.  It  is  nicknamed  the  "  Breeches  Bible,"  from  its  rendering 
"  made  themselves  breeches,"  Gen.  3  :  7. 

2  Yet  the  King  James  editions  of  1612-13  had  a  title-page  the  fac- 
simile of  the  Genevan  (heart-shaped  oval  with  twelve  tribes  and  twelve 
apostles  in  margin),  and  other  editions  copied  the  form  and  style  of  the 
Bishops'  Bible  in  order  to  supplant  more  easily  these  popular  versions. 
Eadie,  Hist.,  vol.  ii.  p.  291. 


30  EAHLY   ENGLISH    VERSIONS. 

famous  for  the  excellence  of  its  paper  and  type.  Cover- 
dale  went  thither  to  have  it  printed.  But  the  work  was  in- 
terrupted by  order  of  the  Inquisition  and  many  sheets 
seized.  Most  of  these  were  recovered,  and,  with  types, 
presses  and  men,  brought  to  England,  where  the  work  was 
issued  in  1539.  It  has  an  elaborately  engraved  title-page 
attributed  to  Hans  Holbein,  the  most  famous  wood-en- 
graver of  his  day.1  From  its  large  size,  14  x  9  inches,  this 
work  was  called  The  Great  Bible.  A  second  edition  in 
1540  had  a  preface  by  Cranmer,  from  which  it  has  been  in- 
accurately called  Cranmer1  s  Bible.  It  is  likewise  called 
White  church' 's  or  Whitchurch's  Bible,  after  the  name  of  the 
printer.  The  version  is  mainly  a  careful  revision  of  Cover- 
dale's  Bible  of  1535,  and  is  of  special  interest  because  the 
Psalter  and  the  Scripture  selections  in  the  communion  ser- 
vice of  the  English  Church  Prayer-book  are  from  the  Great 
Bible.  It  remained  the  "Authorized  Version  "  for  twenty- 
eight  years;  indeed,  strictly  it  is  the  only  "Authorized 
Version,"  for  neither  the  Bishops'  nor  the  King  James  Ver- 
sion ever  had  formal  royal  approbation  or  authority.2 

13.  CoverdaW s  Bible,  1535,  which  the  Great  Bible 
closely  resembled,  was  based  largely  upon  the  Latin  Vul- 
gate and  German  Versions,  as  the  title  to  his  New  Testa- 
ment honestly  states.3  The  German  versions  used  were 
doubtless  Luther's  and  the  Zurich  ;  Pagninus  and  the  Latin 
Vulgate,  and  Tyndale,  probably  make  up  the  "five  inter- 
preters" Coverdale  says  he  followed.     The  chief  merit  of 


1  A  fac-simile  of  the  title-page  is  given  from  Moulton's  History  of 
the  English  Bible. 

2  See  Eadie,  Hist.  Eng.  Bible,  vol.  i.  p.  383. 

3  "  Biblia — the  Bihle  :  that  is  the  Holy  Scripture  of  the  Olde  and 
Newe  Testament  faithfully  and  truly  translated  out  of  Douche  [t.  e. 
German]  and  Latyn  in  to  Englishe  xMDXXXV." 


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EARLY    ENGLISH    VERSIONS.  .*>! 

his  version  is  its  pure,  strong  English  idiom,  sometimes 
quaint  withal,  but  generally  musical.  Some  of  the  most 
rhythmical  and  familiar  passages  in  the  Psalms  come  to  us 
from  Coverdale's  Version.  He  also  edited  a  New  Testa- 
ment, 1538,  with  the  Latin  and  English  side  by  side. 

14.  Matthew's  Bible,  1537,  which  was  issued  soon  after 
Coverdale's,  and  before  the  Great  Bible,  was  the  reputed 
work  of  Thomas  Matthew.  But  th;s  was  clearly  an  as- 
sumed name,  and  it  is  almost  certain  that  the  real  author 
was  John  Rogers  the  martyr.  Rogers  was  a  friend  of  Tyn- 
dale,  and  the  translation  is  substantially  the  version  of 
Tyndale  except  from  Ezra  to  Malachi,  which  is  almost 
identical  with  Coverdale's,  1535. 

15.  Taverner  s  Bible,  1539,  *s  a  comparatively  unimpor- 
tant revision  of  Matthew's  Bible,  chiefly  changes  in  the 
notes  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  some  changes  in  the  New 
Testament  text.      He  quaintly  says  of  his  edition  : 

"  I  have  brought  you  some  fine  biscuits  baked  in  the  oven  of  charity, 
carefully  conserved  for  the  chickens  of  the  church,  the  sparrows  of  the 
Spirit,  and  the  sweet  swallows  of  salvation." 

16.  Tyndale's  New  Testament  Version,  1526. — When 
a  learned  papist  declared  with  some  zeal  to  William  Tyn- 
dale, "We  were  better  be  without  God's  law  than  the 
pope's,"  Tyndale  replied,  "  If  God  spare  my  life,  ere 
many  years  I  will  cause  a  ploughboy  to  know  more  of  the 
Scripture  than  thou  doest."  Though  he  died  a  martyr, 
1536,  he  was  able  to  fulfill  his  declaration.  But  he  was 
compelled  to  leave  England  in  1524  and  completed  his 
translation  in  exile. 

17.  Tyndale's  New  Testament,  1526,  was  the  first  Eng- 
lish version  made  directly  from  the  Greek,  (since  Wyc- 
liffe's  version  was  from   the  Latin  Vulgate),  and  the  first 


32 


EARLY    ENGLISH    VERSIONS. 


English  New  Testament  printed.1  It  was  issued  at  Worms 
in  two  editions,  a  quarto  and  an  octavo;  3000  copies  of 
each  were  printed  and  sent  to  England  in  the  spring  of 
1526.  The  title-page  has  an  illuminated  border  showing 
figures  of  the  four  Evangelists  and  the  Apostles  Peter, 
Paul,  James  and  Jude ;  but  it  gives  no  clue  to  editor, 
printer,  place  or  date  of  publication. 

18.  Its  Chief  Features. — The  version  is  vigorous,  clear 
and  simple  enough  in  style  for  the  "  ploughboy  "  to  under- 
stand. The  text  is  arranged  in  paragraphs,  with  chapter 
divisions  but  no  verses.  It  omits  the  doxology  to  the 
Lord's  Prayer.  Tyndale  also  translated  various  portions 
of  the  Old  Testament,  including  all  of  the  Pentateuch, 
which  were  published  after  his  death.  Tyndale's  work 
was  revised  and  incorporated  into  Matthew 's  Bible,  1537, 
as  already  stated. 

19.  Our  Common  Version  is  more  deeply  indebted  for 
its  felicities  of  language  to  Tyndale's  than  to  any  other 
version.  "  Our  English  Testament,"  says  Ellicott,  "after 
all  its  changes,  revisions  and  remodellings,  is  still  truly 
and  substantially  the  venerable  version  of  Tyndale  the 
martyr."  2  "  The  peculiar  genius,"  says  Froude,  '.'  which 
breathes  through  it  [our  English  Bible],  the  mingled  ten- 
derness and  majesty — the  Saxon  simplicity — the  preternat- 
ural grandeur — unequalled,  unapproached  in  the  attempted 
improvements  of  modern  scholars,  all  are  here,  and  bear 
the  impress  of  the  mind  of  one  man — William  Tyndale."  3 

20.  Wycliffe's  Version,  1382,  was  the  first  complete 


1  The  only  portion  of  the  Scriptures  printed  in  English   before  this 
was  a  portion  of  the  Psalms,  in  1505. 

2  On  Revision,  p.  85. 

3  Hist.  Eng.,  vol.  iii.  p.  84. 


EARLY    ENGLISH    VERSIONS.  33 

translation  of  the  Bible  into  English.1  But  it  was  made 
from  the  Latin  Vulgate,  and  as  it  was  before  the  invention 
of  the  art  of  printing,  it  was  a  manuscript  or  written  Bible. 
This  translation  of  the  New  Testament  was  completed  in 
1380,  and  was  entirely  by  John  de  Wycliffe  or  Wiclif,* 
The  Old  Testament  was  finished  about  1382,  Nich- 
olas de  Hereford  aiding  Wycliffe  in  this  portion  of  the 
work. 

21.  A  careful  revision,  called  Purvey' 's  Version,  has  sev- 
eral important  changes,  and  as  a  marked  feature,  short 
comments  in  the  margin.  These  versions  are  anonymous. 
A  translator  of  the  Bible  was  exposed  to  peril,  making  con- 
cealment necessary.  But  the  versions  were  not  hid.  They 
were  eagerly  sought  and  read.  Copies  were  made  and 
passed  into  the  hands  of  all  classes  of  people.  The  king 
and  the  princes  had  them.  Nearly  170  manuscript  copies 
of  Purvey's  Version  made  before  1430  have  been  preserved 
and  examined,  although  a  strict  inquisition  in  that  age 
searched  for  and  burned  all  the  writings  of  Wycliffe  and 
his  followers  which  could  be  found.  Of  the  character  of 
this  first  English  Bible  it  must  be  said  that  it  was  baldly 

1  Metrical  versions  and  paraphrases  of  portions  of  the  Bible  were 
made  in  English  earlier  than  Wycliffe,  and  two  prose  versions  of  the 
Psalms,  one  by  William  of  Shoreham,  1327,  and  the  other  soon  after 
by  Richard  Rolle.  Foxe,  Johnson,  Newcomeand  others,  including  Sir 
Thomas  More,  have  asserted  that  Bede  translated  the  Scriptures  com- 
plete into  the  vernacular ;  but  their  assertion  is  not  supported  by  his- 
tory. More  appears  to  have  referred  to  portions  of  the  Bible  rendered 
into  Anglo-Saxon,  and  the  statements  of  others  rest  upon  mistaken  in- 
formation. See  George  P.  Marsh,  Lects.  Eng.  Lang. ;  Preface  to 
Wyckliffe  by  Forshall  and  Madden. 

2  His  name  was  spelled  about  thirty  different  ways,  giving  an  excel- 
lent illustration  of  the  unsettled  condition  of  the  English  tongue  at 
that  period. 

A  copy  of  the  Bible  in  1429  cost  from  £2  to  £3,  and  for  a  few 
leaves  poor  persons  gladly  gave  a  load  of  hay. 


34 


EARLY    ENGLISH    VERSIONS. 


literal.     Yet,   thrown  into   modern 

forms  of  spelling,   the  version    has 

^  6  many  words  and  phrases  that  were 

2  2  retained  in  later  translations.  It 
§  0  was  the  language  of  the  people,  and 

a  fed  their  hungry  souls  with  the  bread 
2 1  from  God. 
§5—       22.  Anglo-Saxon  Versions. — Most 

3  g  of  the  translations  of  portions  of  the 
*"g  Bible,  earlier  than  WyclifiV  s,  were 
|  o-  mere  paraphrases,  sometimes  failing 
=  =  to  give  the  correct  sense  of  Scrip- 
5  3  ture.  Such  a  paraphrase  of  the 
wji  Gospels  and  the  Acts  in  English, 
H  =J  but  written  in  the  Saxon  characters, 
|  _£  was  made  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
-  ^  twelfth  century  by  Orme  or  Ormun, 
|'i  and    is    called    the    "Ormulum." 

Several  interlinear  versions  (Vul- 
gate of  Jerome  and  the  Vernacular) 
were  made  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh 
centuries,  a  part  of  one  known  as 
the  "  Rushworth  Gloss"  being 
now  in  the  Bodleian  library.  These 
interlinear  versions  were  probably 
made  for  the  use  of  priests  who 
did  not  understand  the  Latin. 
King  Alfred  made  a  translation  of 
the  Ten  Commandments,  portions 
of  the  Gospels,  and  he  projected  a 
translation  of  the  Psalter,  but  his 
death    prevented    its  completion.       The    Venerable   Bede 


a -a 


O      !/) 


►J    aj 


EARLY    ENGLISH    VERSIONS.  35 

1672-755)  completed  a  translation  of  the  Gospel  of  John 
into  the  vernacular  and  wrote  commentaries  on  most  of 
the  books  of  the  Bible.  His  Church  History  was  among 
the  first  books  printed  in  Germany  (1474).  The  earliest 
Anglo-Saxon  paraphrases  of  portions  of  the  Bible  were  in 
verse,  by  Guthloe,  Aldhelm,  and  the  most  noted  one  by 
Caedmon,  about  680.  The  Christian  Scriptures  were  re- 
puted to  have  been  introduced  into  England  by  the 
Monk  Augustin,  about  596,  who  used  copies  of  the  Old 
Latin  Version,  from  which  the  earlier  Anglo-Saxon  trans- 
lations were  made. 

23.  Language  of  English  Bible. — (1)  In  many  paragraphs 
of  the  common  English  Version  39  words  in  40  are  of 
Anglo-Saxon  derivation. 

(2)  In  the  story  of  Joseph  (Gen.  42  :  21-29),  there  are 
only  7  words  beside  proper  names  which  are  not  Anglo- 
Saxon. 

(3)  In  the  parable  of  the  Sower  (Matt.  13,  etc.),  of  106 
different  words,  only  3  are  not  Anglo-Saxon. 

(4)  The  Lord's  Prayer  (Matt.  6  :  9-13)  has  65  words 
("forever"  one  word),  59  are  of  Anglo-Saxon  and  6  are 
of  Latin  derivation. 

(5)  In  John  11  :  32-36,  70  words  in  72  are  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  origin.  In  Milton's  "  Paradise  Lost,"  Book  IV  : 
639,  etc.,  of  90  words  only  74  are  Anglo-Saxon.  In  the 
famous  passage  of  Shakespeare,  "  To  be  or  not  to  be,"  of 
81  words  13  are  not  Anglo-Saxon.  This  shows  the  great 
comparative  strength  of  the  English  Bible  in  words  of 
Anglo-Saxon  origin. 

24.  Leading  Facts  about  English  Bibles. 

(1)  First  complete  Bible  in  English  (by  Wycliffe)//w« 
the  Latin,  1382. 


36 


EARLY    ENGLISH    VERSIONS. 


(2)  First  complete  New  Testament  in  English  (by  Tyn- 
dale)  from  the  Greek,  1526. 

(3)  First  printed  English  Bible,  complete  (Coverdale's), 

I535-1 

(4)  First  English  Testament  divided  into  verses  (Gene- 
van), 1557. 

(5)  First  English  Bible  divided  into  verses  (Genevan), 
1560. 

(6)  First  English  Bible,  translated  complete  from  the 
original  languages,  Greek  and  Hebrew  (the  Genevan  Ver- 
sion), 1560. 

(7)  Cost  of  early  English  Bibles  :  two  arches  of  the  Lon- 
don bridge,  built  in  the  thirteenth  century,  are  reported  to 
have  cost  ^25  ;  a  written  copy  of  the  Bible  cost  £$0.  A 
laborer's  wages  was  \\d.  a  day  and  board  ;  hence  the  cost 
of  a  Bible  would  be  equal  to  a  laborer's  wages  for  about 
fifteen  years.  It  was  perilous  for  common  people  to  read 
or  to  own  a  Bible.  For  example,  in  1429,  Marjery  Back- 
ster  was  indicted  for  asking  her  maid  to  hear  her  husband 
read  the  Bible  by  night.  In  15 14-15 19,  John  Stevenson 
was  arrested  for  teaching  the  Ten  Commandments,  and 
Thomas  Collins  had  his  father  arrested  for  the  same  offence. 
Robert  Pope  informed  against  his  wife,  son  and  father  for 
hearing  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  read  to  them. 

1  First  Bible  published  in  English  with  an  American  imprint,  "  R. 
Aitken,  Philadelphia,  1782."  But  Eliot's  Bible  in  the  Indian  language 
(Algonkin)  was  printed  in  Cambridge,  Mass.,  1663.  The  <;Saur 
Bible  "  was  printed,  in  the  German  language,  at  Germantown,  Pa., 
1743. 


CHAPTER  III. 

OTHER  MODERN  VERSIONS — GERMAN,  LUTHER'S,  DUTCH, 
FRENCH,  ITALIAN,  SPANISH,  DANISH,  SWEDISH,  ARABIC, 
MISSION   VERSIONS. 

i.  Next  to  a  knowledge  of  our  own  versions,  all  English- 
speaking  peoples  should  gain  some  knowledge  of  the  Ger- 
man versions  of  the  Bible.  While  the  Common  Version 
of  the  English  Bible  is  the  growth  of  centuries,  the  mature 
fruit  of  successive  generacions  of  Biblical  scholars  from 
Wyckliffe  to  the  King  James  revisers,  the  German  version 
bears  largely  the  impress  of  one  mind  and  one  genius — Mar- 
tin Luther.  There  were  earlier  versions  in  German,  but  the 
great  version,  the  one  version  and  the  only  popular  one 
that  is  truly  German,  is  that  made  by  the  great  reformer. 

2.  Earlier  German  Versions. — Passing  the  Gothic  ver- 
sion of  the  fourth  century,  there  was  a  translation  of  the 
Bible  made  in  the  fifteenth  century,  by  some  unknown 
scholars,1  from  the  Latin  Vulgate.  No  less  than  seventeen 
editions  of  it  were  printed  between  1462  and  1522 — four- 
teen of  them  in  High  German  and  three  or  four  in  Low 
German  dialect.  Most  of  these  were  issued  of  folio  size, 
in  two  volumes,  with  wood  engravings.  The  Archbishop 
of  Mainz  in  i486  forbade  the  printing  of  sacred  and 
learned  books,  especially  the  German  Bible,  on  the  ground 
that  the  German  language  was  incapable  of  correctly  rep- 


1  Some  have  ascribed  the  earlier  German  version  to  the  Waldenses 
(Keller,  Haupt),  but  it  may  have  sprung  from  a  love  of  the  word 
within  the  Romish  Church  (Jostes,  Schaff  and  others).  In  the  Munich 
Library  are  twenty-one  written  copies  of  the  Gospels  and  Epistles  in 
early  German  versions. 

(37) 


38  MODERN    VERSIONS   OTHER   THAN   ENGLISH. 

resenting  religious  ideas  and  the  profound  sense  of  Greek 
and  Latin  works  ! 

3.  Lather* s  Version. — While  Luther  was  held  a  willing 
prisoner  in  Wartburg  Castle,  he  translated  the  New  Testa- 
ment into  German,  and  it  was  published  in  1522.  Its  title 
was  "  Das  Newe  Testament  Deutzsch.  Wittemberg."  It 
was  illustrated  with  wood  engravings  by  the  famous  Lucas 
Cranach,  having  one  illustration  at  the  beginning  of  each 
book  and  twenty-one  in  the  book  of  Revelation.  It  was 
divided  into  chapters  like  the  Latin  Bible,  and  into  para- 
graphs, but  not  into  verses.  The  Pentateuch  appeared  in 
1523,  the  Psalms  in  1524,  and  the  entire  Bible  (including 
the  Apocrypha)  in  1534.  In  translating  the  Old  Testament, 
Luther  formed  a  committee  (Bible  club)  of  his  colleagues, 
Melanchthon,  Justus  Jonas  and  four  others,  who  aided  him 
in  the  work.  Luther  continued  to  amend  and  improve  the 
version,  issuing  five  successive  revisions  of  it,  the  last  in 
1545.  He  retained  a  Latin  form  of  title,  Biblia,  and  the 
translation  was  issued  in  folio,  with  numerous  engravings. 

4.  Merits  of  Luther1  s  Version. — The  German  Bible  was 
received  with  great  enthusiasm.  A  hundred  thousand 
copies — an  enormous  number  for  that  age — were  sold  be- 
tween 1534  and  15 74.1  If  his  version  did  not  form,  it 
may  be  said  to  have  reformed,  unified  and  crystallized  the 
German  language.  It  gave  it  wings,  and  made  it  intelli- 
gible to  the  common  people  in  all  parts  of  Germany.  It 
is  the  first  great  German  classic.  It  brought  one  language 
out  of  many  dialects — the  language  afterward  of  the  golden 
era  of  German  literature,  the  speech  of  Lessing,  Herder, 
Goethe  and  Schiller.2 


1  See  Schafif,  Hist.  Christ.  C/i.,  vol.  vi.  p.  350. 

'  Heinrich   Heine,  the  poet,  critic   and   German   Voltaire,  says  of 


MODERN    VERSION?!    OTHER    THAN    ENGLISH.  :J9 

5.  The  original  text  of  the  New  Testament,  upon  which 
Luther  based  his  version,  was  the  Greek  text  edited  by 
Erasmus,  15 19.  The  Old  Testament  was  translated  from 
the  Massoretic  Hebrew  text,  edited  by  G.  Ben  Moseh, 
1494  ;  but  the  Septuagint  and  the  Latin  Vulgate  were  often 
consulted,  and  in  the  Apocrypha  the  latter  was  chiefly  used 
as  a  basis.1 

6.  Revisions  of  Luther1  s  Version. — A  comparison  of  Lu- 
ther's Version  as  finally  revised  by  himself  with  copies  as 
now  printed  will  reveal  many  minor  changes.  A  thorough 
revision  of  it  was  ordered  by  the  General  Eisenach  Confer- 
ence of  1863,  and  a  probe-bibel  (proof-Bible)  issued  in 
1883,  recommitted  in  1886,  and  a  final  revision  issued  in 
1892  by  the  Canstein  Bible  House.  Many  eminent  schol- 
ars were  among  the  revision  company,  such  as  Tholuck, 
Riehm,  Dillmann,  Delitzsch,  Meyer,  Dorner  and  Bey- 
schlag.  The  revision  was  issued  in  editions  like  the  old 
version,  with  this  note:  "The  revised  version  is  no  new 
Bible,  but  the  old  Luther  Bible  with  the  correction  of 
mistakes,  for  which  Luther  cannot  be  blamed,  as  they  were 
due  to  the  knowledge  of  his  time."  It  is  used  by  students, 
but  does  not  win  popular  favor  over  the  old  Luther  version. 

7.  The  Roman  Catholics,  though  stoutly  opposed  to  giv- 
ing the  people  the  Bible  in  the  vernacular,  were  compelled 


Luther,  "  He  created  the  German  language.  He  did  this  by  his  trans- 
lation of  the  Bible." — Hist,  of  Religion  and  Poetry  in  Germany,  Lon- 
don, vol.  i.  pp.  425,  427. 

1  Luther  omitted  the  famous  text  respecting  the  three  heavenly  wit- 
nesses, I  John  5:7,  which  appears  first  in  the  Frankfort  edition  of 
Luther's  version  (from  Erasmus'  Greek  text  of  1522),  and  is  retained 
in  the  revised  version  of  Luther,  1883,  but  is  placed  in  brackets.  Tin 
best  text  of  the  Revised  and  of  the  old  Luther  Bible  is  that  by  the 
Canstein  Bible  House. 


40  MODERN    VERSIONS    OTHER    THAN    ENGLISH. 

by  Luther's  work  to  issue  rival  versions  in  self-defence.1  The 
chief  German  versions  by  Romanists  were  by  Emser  (N.  T.), 
1527,  Dietenberger,  1534,  and  Eck,  1537.  They  are  all 
from  the  Vulgate,  and  generally  clumsy  and  stiff,  lacking 
the  purity  of  German  idiom  which  is  found  in  Luther's 
version.  Dietenberger's  revision  was  revised  by  Ulen- 
berg,  1630,  and  re-revised  by  theologians  of  Mainz,  1662, 
and  has  been  issued  as  the  Catholic  Bible  used  in  Ger- 
many and  by  German  Catholics.  Among  German  versions 
or  translations  of  the  Bible  made  for  scholars,  that  by  De 
Wette,  1809,  4th  ed.  1858,  and  that  of  the  N.  T.  by 
Weizsacker,  Tubingen,  1875,  are  tne  best. 

8.  Dutch  Versions. — The  first  complete  translation  of  the 
Bible  into  Dutch  was  made  by  Jacob  Van  Liesveldt,  and 
issued  in  two  volumes  folio,  Antwerp,  1526.  The  second 
edition  cost  the  printer  his  head.  The  version  was  par- 
tially supplanted  by  Utenhove's  version  in  1556.  These 
versions  were  not  in  the  best  idiomatic  Dutch.  The  first 
was  based  on  Luther's  version  and  the  Cologne  Bible ;  the 
second  upon  Luther's  German  and  Olivetan's  French 
version. 

9.  A  new  version  was  ordered  by  the  Dutch  synod  in 
15 7 1  ;  but  owing  to  troubles  and  divisions  in  affairs,  and  to 
the  deaths  of  scholars,  the  work  was  twice  interrupted  and 
long  delayed.  It  was  again  ordered  by  the  famous  Synod 
of  Dort,  1618,  which  appointed  three  translators  and  four- 
teen revisers ;  but  the  new  order  was  not  approved  by  the 
States  General  until  1624,  and  the  work  was  begun  in  1626 
and  was  carried  on  at  Leyden  for  eleven  years.     The  new 

1  Emser  charged  Luther  with  a  thousand  grammatical  and  heretical 
errors,  four  being  in  the  Lord's  Prayer;  among  them,  that  he  added 
the  doxology,  which  is  not  in  the  Latin  Vulgate. 


MODERN    VERSIONS    OTHER  .  THAN    ENGLISH.  41 

translation  finally  appeared  in  two  editions — one  with  and 
one  without  marginal  readings  and  references — in  1637. 
It  is  called  the  States'  Bible ;  and  so  superior  was  its  merit 
that  within  fifteen  years  it  gained  unanimous  popular  favor 
and  ecclesiastical  approval.  It  is  remarkable  for  its  felicity 
of  expression,  and  scholars  regard  it  as  one  of  the  best  of 
existing  versions. 

10.  The  General  Synod  appointed  a  committee  of  four- 
teen, in  1854,  to  revise  the  old  translation,  in  view  of  the 
progress  in  Biblical  criticism.  The  New  Testament  re- 
vision was  completed  and  issued  in  1867,  but  its  reception 
was  not  hearty ;  indeed  it  was  so  adverse  that  the  Old  Tes- 
tament part  was  indefinitely  postponed. 

11.  French  Versions. — Pierre,  about  11 70,  made  a  Bible 
History  in  French,  and  Gruars,  in  1286-89,  prepared  a 
similar  French  Bible  History.  The  first  complete  French 
version  of  the  Bible  was  by  Jean  de  Rely  (Romanist), 
from  the  Vulgate,  1487,  running  into  twelve  editions; 
De  Sacy's,  1666-68,  and  Geronde's,  1820-24.  Another 
version  was  made  by  Lefevre  d'Etaples,  and  issued  in 
Antwerp,  1530.  Pierre  Robert  Olivetan  with  the  aid 
of  that  version  made  another,  corrected  by  Calvin, 
issued  at  the  expense  of  the  Waldenses  in  1535,  which  is 
known  as  the  first  Protestant  version.  The  evangelical 
pastors  of  Geneva  appointed  a  company  from  their  own 
number  (among  them  Beza)  to  issue  a  new  version,  which 
was  completed  in  1588.  This  version  was  revised  by  Mar- 
tin, Amsterdam,  1707,  and  by  Ostervald,  1724. 

12.  Louis  Segond  issued  a  new  version,  Geneva,  1874, 
third  ed.  1879,  being  a  direct  translation  from  Hebrew  and 
Greek  into  French.  This  version  was  printed  by  the  Oxford 
press  (fifty  thousand  copies  first  edition),  with  prose  text  in 


42  -MODERN    VERSIONS    OTHER    THAN    ENGLISH. 

paragraphs,  poetical  books  in  verse.  A  second  edition  was 
issued  in  France,  and  another  in  Geneva,  with  brief  notes. 
Though  highly  esteemed  by  many,  a  popular  National 
French  Version  is  yet  needed.  The  older  versions  of  Mar- 
tin, De  Sacy  and  Ostervald,  revised  by  the  Bible  Society 
of  France,  are  circulated  by  Protestants  and  Evangelists, 
the  latter  using  Segond's  Version  also. 

13.  Italian  Versions. — The  chief  Italian  versions  before 
the  Reformation  were  those  by  Melerni,  Venice,  1471,  and 
by  Bruccioli,  from  the  Greek  and  Hebrew,  Venice,  1530-2. 
The  latter  sharply  censured  any  prohibition  of  the  Bible  in 
the  vernacular,  but  his  version  was  put  in  the  first  class  of  Ro- 
man Catholic  prohibited  books.  Archbishop  Martini  made 
an  Italian  version  from  the  Vulgate  with  notes,  issued  at 
Turin,  1769-79,  that  was  approved  by  Pope  Pius  VI.  It 
is  used  by  some  Protestants  also. 

14.  An  Italian  version  was  made  under  Protestant 
influence  by  Teofilo,  revised  by  Gallors  and  Beza,  and 
issued  at  Geneva,  1562,  for  Italian  fugitives.  It  was  soon 
displaced  by  the  version  of  G.  Diodati,  made  from  the 
Greek  and  Hebrew,  issued  at  Geneva,  1603,  and  with 
notes,  1607.  It  was  in  the  Lucchese  or  peasant's  dialect. 
Revisions  of  Diodati's  and  of  Martini's  versions  are  now 
circulated  by  Bible  societies  and  Bible  colporteurs. 

15.  Spanish  Versions. — The  Albigenses  made  Spanish 
versions  of  portions  of  the  Bible  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
a  Catalan  version  was  made  in  1478.  Francisco  Enzina 
translated  the  New  Testament  into  Spanish,  issued  at  Ant- 
werp, 1543,  and  Juan  Perez  made  a  version,  Venice,  1556. 
Cassidore  De  Reyna  issued  the  entire  Bible  in  Spanish,  at 
Basel,  1569.  It  was  revised  by  De  Valera,  Amsterdam, 
1602.     Scio   made    a    translation    from    the    Vulgate    into 


MODERN    VERSIONS    OTHER    THAN    ENGLISH.  4-*5 

Spanish,  and  San  Miguel  another,  issued  at  Madrid,  1794, 
in  nineteen  volumes,  with  Latin  and  Spanish  texts  and  notes. 
Bishop  Amat  also  issued  aversion  with  notes,  Madrid,  1824, 
and  one  was  issued  in  Mexico,  1831-33.  The  Protestants 
use  Enzina's  and  Valera's  versions  chiefly ;  the  Catholics, 
Scio's  or  Amat's. 

16.  Danish  Versions. — The  first  complete  Danish  ver- 
sion of  the  Bible  was  edited  under  the  name  of  C.  Peder- 
son  in  1550,  and  has  been  often  revised,  a  thorough  revi- 
sion being  made  in  1815  to  1824.  A  special  revision  was 
made  in  1871,  which  is  used  by  the  Norwegian  Bible 
Society. 

17.  A  Swedish  version  was  completed  in  1541  by  Lau- 
rentius  and  Olaus  Petri.     This  has  been  often  revised. 

18.  Besides  the  versions  in  the  principal  languages  of 
Europe,  there  have  been  many  versions  and  revisions  made 
in  other  European  languages  and  dialects,  as  the  Welsh, 
Gaelic,  Irish,  Portuguese,  Lap,  Polish,  Bohemian,  Russ, 
Slavonic,  Modern  Greek  and  many  others.  Of  these,  and 
the  three  hundred  and  more  missionary  translations,  par- 
ticular notice  cannot  here  be  given. 

19.  The  modern  Arabic  version  begun  by  Eli  Smith, 
1847,  and  completed  by  his  co-laborer,  C.  V.  A.  Van 
Dyck,  1866,  is  a  monument  of  patient,  persevering  and 
profound  scholarship.  It  is  accounted  one  of  the  most 
faithful  and  finished  of  all  modern  missionary  versions. 

The  Bible  is  now  issued  entire,  or  in  portions,  in  more 
than  four  hundred  languages  and  dialects;  having  been 
translated  into  about  four  hundred  and  fifty  tongues,  of 
which  twenty  to  twenty-five  versions  have  been  discontinued. 
Over  three  hundred  and  fifty  versions  have  been  made  by 
Protestant  missionaries  within  the  past  century. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

ANCIENT    VERSIONS ARMENIAN,     GOTHIC,     EGYPTIAN,     ETHI- 
OPIAN, SYRIAN,   LATIN,   GREEK  j    THE  HEBREW  TARGUMS. 

i.  One  book  of  religion — the  Bible — has  been  valued 
and  loved  by  the  learned  and  unlearned,  by  priest  and 
people,  for  more  than  eighteen  centuries.  No  other 
sacred  book  has  been  so  deeply  or  so  widely  endeared  to 
the  human  heart.  There  is  no  other  book  with  a  history 
like  that  of  the  Bible.  In  the  early  centuries  of  Christian- 
ity, translations  of  the  Bible  into  the  vernacular  or  common 
speech  of  the  peoples  were  made  and  circulated  wherever 
the  gospel  gained  a  foothold  among  a  nation  or  a  people. 
Several  of  the  more  important  of  these  translations,  or  por- 
tions of  them,  have  been  preserved  to  our  times,  and  are 
of  value  in  establishing  the  early  and  often  the  true  reading 
of  the  original  copy  of  the  Christian  Scriptures.  Some  of 
these  versions  will  now  be  briefly  described. 

2.  The  Armenian. — The  gospel  was  introduced  into  Ar- 
menia from  Cappadocia ;  and  the  translations  of  the  Bible 
into  Armenian  were  probably  made  from  Greek  manuscripts 
obtained  from  some  portion  of  Asia  Minor.  At  first  the 
Armenian  disciples  may  have  used  Syriac  copies  of  the 
Scriptures  ;  but  early  in  the  fourth  century  they  had  a  writ- 
ten language,  formed  from  an  alphabet  of  thirty-six  letters. 
The  earliest  version  of  the  Scriptures  in  Armenian  appears 
to  have  been  made  from  the  Peshito  fSyriac).  Later  in 
(44) 


ANCIENT    VERSIONS   OF   THE    BIBLE.  45 

that  century  (431  to  450)  a  new  translation,  direct  from 
the  Greek,  was  suggested  by  Miesrob  and  Moses  Chorenen- 
sis,  and  was  completed  by  two  scholars,  Joseph  and  Eznak, 
who  went  to  Alexandria  to  perfect  their  knowledge  of  the 
Greek.  The  existing  manuscripts  of  this  version  are  not 
very  ancient,  but  they  contain  the  entire  Bible.  The  best 
printed  edition  is  by  Zohrab,  and  is  now  issued  by  the 
British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society. 

3.  The  Gothic. — The  Goths,  in  their  old  home  about 
Mcesia,  were  early  led  to  accept  Christianity.  Their  sec- 
ond bishop,  Ulphilas  (Ulfilas  or  Wulfilas),  348  a.  d., 
who  was  an  Arian,  translated  the  Bible  (except  I.,  II.  Sam. 
and  I.,  II.  Kings)  from  Greek  into  Gothic.  The  gospels  are 
placed  in  the  "  western  "  order,  that  is,  Matthew,  John, 
Luke,  Mark.  Seven  manuscripts  containing  portions  of 
this  version  have  been  preserved  ;  but  they  are  fragmentary, 
large  gaps  occurring  and  missing  leaves  in  both  the  Old 
and  New  Testament  portions.  The  best-printed  editions 
are:  A.  Uppstrom,  Upsala,  1854-1868,  and  E.  Bernhardt, 
Halle,  1875, — tne  latter  being  the  Gothic  and  Greek,  with 
critical  notes.1 

4.  The  Coptic  or  Egyptian  Versions. — Little  has  been 
definitely  known  of  these  ancient  Coptic  translations  until 
recently.  Three  are  known  in  three  different  dialects:  (1) 
The  Memphitic  or  Bahiric  dialect  of  lower  Egypt.  This 
translation  belongs  to  the  second  century.  There  are  in 
the  various  libraries  of  Europe  twenty-eight  manuscript 
copies  of  the  Gospels  in  the  Memphitic  dialect,  seventeen 
copies  of  the  Pauline  and  catholic  Epistles  and  the  Acts 
(the  Acts  follow  instead  of  precede  the  Epistles),  and  ten 
af  the  book  of  Revelation.  This  translation  is  regarded 
as  of  great  importance,  because  it  is  believed  to  indicate 

1  Also  Gothic  Version  by  G.  H.  Balg,  Ph.D.,  N.  Y.,  1891. 


n; 


ANCIENT    VERSIONS    OF   THE    BIBLE. 


the  text  current  at  Alexandria,  free  from  many  corruptions 
prevailing  in  the  second  century.  (2)  The  Thebaic  or  Sa- 
hidic  version,  in  the  dialect  of  upper  Egypt,  also  exists  in 
manuscripts,  but  only  in  a  very  fragmentary  form.1  The 
best-printed  edition  of  the  Thebaic  translation  is  by  C.  G. 
Woide,  completed  by  Ford,  Oxford,  1799.  (3)  The  Bash- 
muric  or  Fayamic  translation,  probably  belonging  to  the 
third  century,  of  which  only  fragments  of  John's  Gos- 
pel and  of  the  Pauline  Epistles  have  been  found.  This 
version  is  based  upon  the  Thebaic,  the  Bashmuric  being  a 
modification  of  the  Thebaic  dialect,  and  the  Bashmuric 
translation  is  chiefly  useful  in  texts  where  the  Thebaic  is 
wanting. 

5.  An  Ethiopic  version  was  early  made  for  use  in  Abys- 
sinia, probably  in  the  fourth  century.  The  manuscript 
copies  of  this  version  are  not  very  ancient ;  but  the  Ethi- 
opic has  now  given  place  to  a  later  dialect,  the  Amharic, 
into  which  the  Bible  has  been  translated. 

6.  The  Syriac  Versions. — The  old  Syriac  language  be- 
longs to  the  Semitic  family  of  languages,  and  is  older  than 
the  patriarch  Jacob.  It  is  copious,  flexible  and  dignified, 
and  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  were  translated  into  that 
tongue  and  used  in  public  worship  from  the  second  century 
downward. 


1  These  ancient  Coptic  translations  show  that  the  hooks  then  in- 
cluded in  the  New  Testament  were  the  same  as  now,  except  the  Apoc- 
alypse. The  order,  however,  was  different ;  the  four  Gospels  were 
first,  but  usually  in  this  order — John,  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke;  then 
came  the  Pauline  Epistles,  including  that  to  the  Hebrews,  next  the 
catholic  or  general  epistles,  and  lastly  Acts.  In  some  of  the  manu- 
scripts the  book  of  Revelation  appears  at  the  end ;  but  there  are  lec- 
tionaries  or  Scripture  service  lessons  between  the  book  of  Acts  and 
the  book  of  Revelation.  This  would  indicate  that  Revelation  was  not 
admitted  to  the  New  Testament  in  the  opinion  of  those  who  made  the 


ANCIENT    VERSIONS    OTHER    THAN    ENGLISH.  47 

7.  The  oldest  Syriac  version  yet  found  is  conceded  to  be 
the  Cureionia?i,  a  fragment  of  the  Gospels  found  by  Dr. 
Cureton  in  a  convent  of  the  Nitrian  desert,  in  1842,  and 
published,  with  an  English  translation,  in  1858,  and  with 
three  added  leaves  in  1870-72.  A  nearly  complete  copy 
of  the  Gospels  in  Syriac  was  found  at  Mt.  Sinai,  in  1892, 
by  Mrs.  Lewis,  and  published  later.  The  Syriac  Bible,  the 
Peshitto  or  Peshitta — " simple"  or  "literal,"  belongs  to 
the  third  or  fourth  century.  It  does  not  contain  the 
apocrypha,  but  only  the  Hebrew  canonical  books.  It  has 
been  known  to  scholars  for  over  three  centuries.1  Another 
Syriac  version  is  called  the  Philoxenian,  after  Philoxenes,  a 
bishop  of  eastern  Syria,  and  was  made  by  one  Polycarp  in  the 
sixth  century.  A  later  revision  has  been  preserved,  called 
the  Harklean,  after  Thomas  of  Harkel,  who  revised  it.  A 
good  manuscript  of  this  version  from  Mardin,  is  preserved 
in  the  Protestant  College,  Beirut.  A  third  Syriac  version 
in  a  peculiar  dialect  is  known  as  the  Jerusalem  Syriac.  It 
is  an  Evangelistary,  or  Gospel  selections  for  church  service. 
It  is  preserved  in  five  manuscripts  in  the  Vatican,  Rome, 
and  dates  from  the  fifth  century. 

8.  The  Latin. — The  ancient  versions  of  the  Bible  in 
Latin  may  be  classed  in  two  groups: — (1)  Old  Latin ;  (2) 
The  Vulgate,  by  Jerome,  in  its  varied  recensions.  The 
Old  Latin  translation  was  known  to  the  Latin  fathers,  as 
Tertullian,  Cyprian,  the  two  Hilarys,  Ambrose,  Jerome, 
Augustine,  Pelagius  and  others.  It  dates  back  to  the  mid- 
translation,  or  else  that  it  belonged  to  a  second  canon,  as  we  know  was 
the  case  for  a  time  with  some  of  the  shorter  epistles. 

1  The  best  printed  edition  in  England  is  by  the  British  and  Foreign 
Bible  Society,  and  by  Bagster.  A  better  American  edition  is  by  Dr. 
J.  Perkins,  Oroomiah,  1841,  and  New  York,  1874;  also  a  literal  trans- 
lation from  the  Syriac  Peshito,  by  Dr.  Murdock,  New  York,  1857. 


48  ANCIENT    VERSIONS   OF   THE   BIBLE. 

die  or  latter  half  of  the  second  century.  It  was  made 
from  the  Septuagint,  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  is  in  the 
rough  Latin  of  the  second  century,  which  lacks  classic  pol- 
ish, yet  is  not  without  vigor  and  terseness  of  expression. 

9.  Fragments  of  the  Old  Latin  translations  are  still 
extant,  and  indicate  three  variant  types  of  the  text — an 
African,  a  European,  and  one  of  the  character  which 
Augustine  commends  as  the  Itala.  Whether  all  these  forms 
are  based  upon  one  African  translation  or  on  different  in- 
dependent translations  is  an  unsettled  question.  This 
much  seems  to  be  generally  agreed  by  the  best  critics,  that 
the  earliest  form  of  the  Old  Latin  version  is  of  north  Afri- 
can origin.  From  thirty  to  forty  manuscripts  of  portions 
of  the  Old  Latin  version  are  known  to  be  in  existence.  A 
carefully-edited  and  printed  edition  of  these  Old  Latin 
versions  is  a  thing  desired.  Many  religious  terms  and  ex- 
pressions continually  used  by  us  are  due  to  the  Latin  Bible. 
10.  The  Vulgate. — Jerome,  one  of  the  most  learned  men  of 
his  time,  urged  by  the  Roman  bishop  Damasus,  about  383 
a.d.,  undertook  a  thorough  revision  of  the  Old  Latin  ver- 
sions, that  he  might  make  a  Vulgate  (Vulgata)  or  Latin 
text  of  the  Bible  which  would  be  universally  accepted  by 
Latin-speaking  peoples.  His  work  of  revising  the  Old 
Latin  versions  led  Jerome  to  undertake  a  new  and  more 
faithful  translation  of  the  Old  Testament  from  the  Hebrew. 
He  spent  about  fourteen  years  (390  to  405)  at  Bethlehem, 
the  town  in  which  our  Saviour  was  born,  in  these  labors.1 
Jerome's  version  was  not  at  first  regarded  with  favor;  but 
after  some  years  its  superior  merit  brought  it  into  general 

1  At  Bethlehem,  in  the  crypt  under  the  Church  of  the  Nativity,  is  a 
room  called  the  "  Chapel  of  St.  Jerome,"  in  which  this  great  man  is 
said  to  have  pursued  his  studies  and  work  of  translating  the  Bible. 


ANCIENT    VERSIONS    OF    THE    BIBLE.  49 

use.  For  years  it  raised  a  howl  of  indignation.  Jerome 
was  irritated  by  the  attacks  of  the  ignorant  priests,  whom 
he  calls  bipedes  asellos,  "  two-legged  donkeys."  Long  after 
Jerome's  death  his  version  was  accepted,  and  iooo  years 
later  was  counted  superior  to  the  original  text !  The  Latin 
Bible  which  came  thus  into  use  as  Jerome's  version  was  in 
fact  a  composite  work.  The  Old  Testament,  excepting  the 
Psalms,  was  from  his  new  translation  made  from  the  He- 
brew. The  Psalms  were  his  revision  of  the  Old  Latin, 
based  not  upon  the  original  Hebrew  but  upon  the  Septua- 
gint.1  The  Apocrypha  was  based  on  the  Old  Latin  trans- 
lation, excepting  the  two  books  of  Judith  and  Tobit,  which 
were  from  Jerome's  new  version.  The  New  Testament 
books  were  revised  from  the  Old  Latin  version.  The  text 
became  so  corrupt  that  Charlemagne  about  802  directed 
Alcuin  to  collate  the  copies  and  revise  the  Latin  text. 

11.  The  Council  of  Trent,  1546,  decreed  what  books  were 
to  be  received  as  canonical,  and  that  the  text  of  the 
Latin  edition  was  authentic.  But  the  question  at  once 
arose,  Which  Latin  text,  and  which  edition  of  it,  is  the 
authentic  one?  Pope  Sixtus  V.  issued  a  revised  edition  of 
the  Vulgate  text  in  1590,  which  he  decreed  to  be  the  au- 
thoritative edition,  and  threatened  excommunication  against 
any  who  used  any  other.  Sixtus  died  that  year.  So  many 
errors,  however,  were  pointed  out  in  the  Sixtine  edition 
that  Bellarmin  proposed  to  issue  a  corrected  edition  in  Six- 
tus' name,  and  this  pious  fraud  was  actually  undertaken, 
and  in  the  new  edition  all  the  principal  blunders  in  the 


1  It  was  called  the  Roman  Psalter,  while  Jerome's  new  translation 
was  known  as  the  Galilean  Psalter.  The  former  was  retained  in  the 
Latin  Bibles  until  Pius  V.,  1566,  when  it  was  displaced  by  the  Galilean 
Psalter. 


50  ANCIENT    VERSIONS   OF   THE    BIBLE. 

former  edition  were  charged  to  the  printers  !  Clement 
VIII.  had  the  new  edition  of  the  Latin  text  prepared  with 
greater  care  and  issued  in  1592,  in  the  face  of  the  threat- 
ened anathema  of  his  predecessor,  Sixtus  V.1  This  Clem- 
entine text  is  the  standard  Roman  Catholic  Bible,  taking 
precedence  in  that  church  of  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  origi- 
nal texts  in  questions  of  doctrine  and  life.  A  critical  edi- 
tion of  Jerome's  Latin  version  is  wanting,  though  the 
materials  for  it  are  abundant. 

12.  The  Septuagint,  or  Greek  version  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, was  made  by  Hellenistic  Jews  of  Alexandria,  be- 
tween 285  and  247  B.C.  According  to  Jewish  tradition,  it 
was  made  by  seventy  or  seventy-two  elders  (hence  its  title; 
Septuaginta,  or  seventy)  sent  from  Jerusalem ;  but  great 
obscurity  rests  upon  the  real  time  and  history  of  its  origin.2 
It  is  also  very  difficult  now  to  ascertain  precisely  what  was 
the  reading  of  the  original  Septuagint,  but  it  is  assumed 
that  the  text  we  have  is  in  the  main  that  current  in  the  days 
of  our  Lord.  From  this  version  Jesus  quotes,  and  so  do 
the  apostles.  It  was  the  accepted  Scriptures  of  the  dis- 
persed Jews,  and  is  the  basis  of  the  Greek  used  by  early 
Christian  writers.  The  Septuagint  is  in  the  main  faithful  to 
the  Hebrew  text,  although  it  cannot  be  said  to  be  minutely 
accurate,  judged  by  the  Hebrew  now  current,  for  it  some- 


1  These  are  known  as  the  Sixtine  or  Clementine  Latin  texts. 

2  The  importance  of  this  translation  is  apparent  not  merely  from  its 
great  antiquity,  which,  between  conflicting  Hebrew  readings,  indicates 
the  one  then  current,  but  also  from  the  fact  that  of  290  direct  quota- 
tions from  the  Old  Testament  in  the  New,  the  great  majority  agree  bet- 
ter with  the  Septuagint  than  with  the  Hebrew.  More  exactly,  accord- 
ing to  Turpie,  90  quotations  agree  with  the  Septuagint,  of  which  53 
also  agree  with  the  Hebrew  ;  10  agree  with  the  Hebrew  but  not  with 
the  Septuagint;  175  differ  from  both,  but  these  generally  are  nearer  to 
the  Septuagint  than  to  the  Hebrew. 


ANCIENT    VERSIONS   OF    THE   BIBLE.  51 

times  gives  a  paraphrase  rather  than  a  close  translation  of 
the  Hebrew  text.  It  was  freely  used  by  the  early  Christian 
fathers.  The  current  text  of  the  Greek  Scriptures  had  be- 
come corrupted  from  frequent  copying  during  several 
centuries.  In  order  to  attain  a  better  text,  Origen  (184- 
254)  edited  a  tetrapla,  or  fourfold  text,  and  later  on  his 
hexapla,  or  sixfold  Bible  text.  In  parallel  columns,  Origen 
arranged  (1)  the  Hebrew  text  in  Hebrew  letters;  (2)  the 
Hebrew  text  in  Greek  letters;  (3)  a  Greek  version  by 
Aquila;  (4)  a  Greek  version  by  Symmachus;  (5)  the  Greek 
version  known  as  the  Septuagint ;  (6)  a  Greek  version  by 
Theodotion.  Fragments  only  of  this  work  have  been  pre- 
served to  us,  chiefly  in  quotations  from  the  fathers.1 

13.  The  Targums  is  the  general  term  for  the  Chaldee  or 
Aramaic  versions  and  paraphrases  of  portions  of  the  Old 
Testament.  Eight  are  now  extant,  of  which  three  are 
upon  the  Pentateuch,  two  on  Esther,  and  others  upon  the 
prophets,  poetical  books  and  other  portions  of  the  Old 
Testament.  These  are  generally  very  free  translations,  and 
often  diffuse  paraphrases.  The  so-called  Targum  of  Onke- 
los  on  the  Pentateuch  and  of  Jernshalmi  in  its  first  form 
are  the  most  literal  versions.  These  works  were  a  growth 
from  oral  traditions  and  teachings,  and  of  great  interest  to 
Old  Testament  students.  The  earliest  historic  instance  of 
a  targum  is  when  Ezra  read  the  law  to  the  returned  exiles, 
and   the  scribes  were   compelled   to  "give  the  sense  and 


1  Aquila  was  a  Jewish  proselyte  of  Pontus,  who  made  a  Greek  ver- 
sion of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  1 17-138  A.D.,  to  use  in  discussions  with 
the  Christians,  because  the  Septuagint  version  was  used  against  the 
Jews.  Theodotion  made  a  revision  of  the  Greek  version  of  the  Old 
Testament  about  the  same  period  as  the  work  by  Aquila,  and  his  ver- 
sion is  retained  in  Greek  Bibles.  The  version  by  Symmachus,  an 
Ebionite  disciple,  was  made  somewhat  later. 


52  ANCIENT    VERSIONS    OF    THE    BlBLP!. 

cause  them  to  understand  the  reading,"  Neh.  8  :  8.  From 
these  oral  interpretations  the  Targums  grew.  The  date  of 
the  origin  of  these  Targums  is  uncertain.  The  Aramaic 
was  an  international  tongue  of  North  Semitic  peoples  before 
the  exile,  but  not  understood  by  Palestine  Jews.  Is.  36  :  n. 
Some  hold  that  in  very  early  times  it  was  forbidden  to 
write  or  transcribe  these  translations,  but  this  is  not  proven. 
The  Targums  on  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  probably 
represent  the  earlier  synagogue  readings  and  comments, 
no  doubt  of  pre-Christian  times,  though  reduced  to  writing 
at  some  later  period.  In  Palestine  they  were  not  recog- 
nized as  proper  authorities.  The  principal  Targums  were: 
Baby  Ionian :  1 .  The  Targum  of  Onkelos-Aquila,  on  the 
Pentateuch  ;  "  Onkelos  "  probably  being  a  mistake  for  the 
Greek  translator  Aquilas.  2.  The  Targum  of  Jonathan 
ben  Uzziel  on  the  Prophets.  How  it  came  to  be  ascribed 
to  Jonathan,  the  pupil  of  Hillel,  has  not  been  satisfactorily 
explained.  Palestinian  :  3.  The  Targum  Jeruschalmii,  in 
two  forms,  I.  II.,  on  the  Law :  I.  is  complete ;  II.  is  in  frag- 
ments only.  The  first  is  also  referred  to  as  Targum  Jona- 
than (Pseudo-Jonathan).  4.  The  Targum  on  the  Prophets, 
existing  in  fragments  only.  5.  Targums  on  the  Hagio- 
grapha;  the  portion  on  the  Book  of  Esther  being  an 
especial  favorite.  6.  The  Samaritan  Targums  on  the  Law. 
The  Melurgeman  was  an  assistant  interpreter,  aiding  the 
reader  in  the  synagogue  service.  His  office  was  allied  to 
the  modern  dragoman  of  the  East. 


CHAPTER   V. 

ANCIENT  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  THE  BIBLE — GREEK  MSS.,  HOW 
WRITTEN,  UNCIALS,  CURSIVES  OR  MINUSCULES,  HEBREW 
MANUSCRIPTS,    MASSORAH. 

The  Hebrew  manuscripts  are  not  ancient  compared  with 
the  versions  of  the  Old  Testament.      See  16,  17. 

1.  How  Written. — The  oldest  existing  copies  of  the 
books  of  the  New  Testament,  in  their  original  Greek,  are 
written  upon  fine  vellum,  made  from  the  skins  of  very 
young  calves.  Some  are  written  upon  parchment,  made 
from  the  skins  of  sheep  or  goats. 

The  Sinaitic  MS.  is  made  of  fine  skins  of  antelopes. 
The  leaves  of  this  MS.  are  so  large  that  the  skin  of  one 
antelope  would  make  only  two  leaves.  As  the  MS.  in  its 
present  fragmentary  state  has  346J  leaves,  and,  adding  the 
43  previously  discovered,  389 \  leaves,  it  must  have  required 
195  antelopes  to  make  the  vellum  on  which  it  is  written  ! 
The  Vatican  MS.  is  written  upon  vellum  admired  by  all 
who  have  seen  it,  for  the  beauty  of  its  finish  and  texture. 
It  is  supposed  that  earlier  copies  of  the  New  Testament 
books  were  written  upon  less  durable  papyrus,  and  hence 
have  perished.  The  manuscript  copies  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment are  older  than  any  existing  written  copies  of  the  Old 
Testament  in  Hebrew  ;  but  the  oldest  MSS.  of  the  New 
Testament  contain  the  whole  or  large  portions  of  the  Old 
Testament  in  Greek. 

(53) 


54  ANCIENT    MANUSCRIPTS    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

2.  How  Classified. — The  ancient  manuscripts  of  the  New 
Testament  are  classified:  (i)  By  their  supposed  origin,  or 
source  from  which  each  manuscript  text  was  derived.  Thus 
they  are  grouped  as  Alexandrian,  Western,  and  Neutral, 
according  to  their  genealogical  source.  (2)  By  the  style 
of  their  writing,  as  (a)  Uncials;  that  is,  those  written  in 
capitals,  and  (£)  Cursives,  or  Minuscules ;  that  is,  those 
written  in  a  small,  running  hand.  As  many  of  these  manu- 
scripts contain  only  fragments  of  the  New  Testament,  the 
book  MSS.  are  arranged  in  four  or  five  groups — Gospels, 
Acts,  General  Epistles,  Pauline  Epistles,  Apocalypse — so 
that  some  manuscripts  may  be  counted  more  than  once, 
since  each  group  of  books  has  its  own  separate  numbering 
of  the  manuscripts.  This  must  be  remembered  in  speaking 
of  the  number  of  manuscripts  given  below.     See  14. 

3.  The  Uncial  manuscripts  of  the  New  Testament,  reck- 
oned in  the  way  just  stated,  now  number  about  120,  and  of 
Cursives,  from  2500  to  3500.  But  the  number  varies 
because  of  different  ways  of  counting.  Thus  Scrivener  gives 
97  Uncials,  1997  Cursives  ;  Abbot  92  Uncials  and  1600  Cur- 
sives; Gregory  109  Uncials  and  3553  Cursives;  Rendel 
Harris,  120  Uncials,  2400  to  2500  Cursives. 

4.  Divisions  of  the  Text. — In  the  earliest  manuscripts 
there  are  no  spaces  between  the  words,  and  no  marks  be- 
tween sentences  except  an  occasional  dot  at  the  top  of  the 
line.  But  there  are  divisions  into  paragraphs,  and  marks 
indicating  sections.  For  example,  in  the  Gospels  there  are 
numerals  marking  and  dividing  the  text  of  Matthew  into 
170  unequal  sections,  Mark  into  62,  Luke  into  150  and 
John  into  80.  Similar  sections,  though  not  as  ancient,  are 
found  in  the  Acts  and  Epistles. 

5.  Titloi. — In  other  MSS.  of  the  fifth  century  and  later 


ANCIENT    MANUSCRIPTS    OF    THE    BIBLE.  00 

there  are  divisions  into  sections  or  chapters,  called  t'ltXoi  = 
titloi,  as  the  title  of  the  section  is  given  with  its  number. 
These  differ  from  the  former  divisions,  for  in  the  Gospels 
they  uniformly  begin  with  what  we  would  regard  as  the 
second  section.  The  general  title  to  the  book  was  appar- 
ently sufficient  to  designate  the  first  section.  Of  these 
titloi  =  titles,  Matthew  has  68,  Mark  48,  Luke  83  and  John 
18.  There  was  a  similar  division  of  the  Acts  and  Epistles 
into  "  headings  "  or  chapters,  of  a  later  origin. 

6.  The  Ammonian  or  Eusebian  sections  of  the  Gospels 
was  another  and  different  grouping,  made  to  facilitate  the 
finding  of  the  different  passages  that  were  parallel  in  the 
four  Gospels ;  hence  some  were  long  and  some  very  short. 
John  19  :  6,  for  example,  is  divided  into  three  sections. 
These  sections  were  numbered  in  the  margin  consecutively 
from  the  beginning  of  each  Gospel.  Matthew  had  355 
such  sections,  Mark  (originally)  233,  Luke  342  and  John 
232.  Eusebius  divided  the  numbers  of  these  sections  into 
ten  tables  or  "  canons."  The  first,  in  four  columns,  notes 
the  sections  that  are  parallel  in  all  four  Gospels ;  the  next 
three,  the  sections  that  are  parallel  in  three  of  the  Gospels  ; 
the  next  five  tables  note  the  sections  parallel  in  two  of  the 
Gospels ;  the  last  table  gives  the  sections  peculiar  to  each 
Gospel. 

7.  Modern  Divisions. — The  origin  of  the  present  chapter 
and  verse  divisions  of  the  Bible  rests  in  some  obscurity. 
They  were  probably  the  work  of  the  Spanish  Cardinal, 
Hugues  de  St.  Cher  (1262),  or  some  say  of  the  British 
Archbishop  Langton  (1228),  being  used  first  in  the  Latin 
Vulgate,  and  was  transferred  from  that  to  the  Hebrew  text 
by  Rabbi  I.  Nathan  in  the  fifteenth  century,  and  by  others 
into  the  Greek  manuscripts  of  the  New  Testament,  and 
thence  by  Robert  Stephens,    155 1,   to  the  margin  of  his 


56  ANCIENT    MANUSCRIPTS    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

printed  Greek  Testament.1  The  Old  Testament  verse 
divisions  were  doubtless  based  upon  the  ancient  paragraphs, 
probably  introduced  for  the  convenience  of  reading  in  the 
synagogue  service.  (See  19.)  The  English  Revised  Ver- 
sions have  attempted  to  restore  the  ancient  divisions. 

8.  Uncial  Manuscripts. — Among  the  most  important  un- 
cial manuscripts  is  the  Sinaitic  (known  as  n),  found  by 
Prof.  Constantine  Tischendorf,  in  1859,  in  the  Convent  of 
St.  Catherine,  at  Mount  Sinai,  and  now  in  the  Imperial  libra- 
ry, St.  Petersburg,  Russia.  It  contains  the  whole  of  the  New 
Testament  in  Greek,  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  and  part  of 
the  Shepherd  of  Hermas,  and  a  large  part  of  the  Old  Tes- 

toth  ceyceBa  kc 
MYCTH  f  /  o  Noce 

Fourth  Cent.     Codex  Sinaiticus. — I  Tim.  3  :  16. 
to  T7]Q  evGEfieiag  \  juvarr/piov  [6e  late  corr.]  og  e. 

tament  in  the  Greek  version.  It  consists  of  346*  leaves1 
of  very  fine  thin  vellum,  13*  inches  long  by  T4I  inches 
wide.  The  text  is  written  with  four  columns  of  48  lines 
each  on  a  page,  except  in  the  poetical  books  of  the  Old 
Testament,  which  have  but  two  columns  on  a  page.  The 
words  have  no  spaces  between  them,  and  are  often  abbrevi- 
ated by  a  line  over  the  letters.  There  are  corrections  or 
alterations  by  later  hands  in  succession,  noticeable  from 
the  different  form  of  the  letters  and  different  shades  of 
inks,  so  that  Prof.  Tischendorf  distinguished  the  work  of 
ten  different  correctors.  A  fac-simile  edition  of  the  MS. 
was  printed  at  the  expense  of  the  emperor  of  Russia,  and 

1  To  these  are  to  be  added  43  leaves  found  in  1844  and  called  Codex 
Friderico-Angustanns,  and  two  leaves  and  a  fragment  of  a  leaf  found 
in  1853  and  belonging  originally  to  this  Sinaitic  MS.,  making  in  all 
upwards  of  391^  leaves. 


ANCIENT    MANUSCRIPTS   OF    THE    BIBLE.  Oi 

about  a  dozen  copies  came  to  the  United  States,  to  several 
important  libraries,  as  the  Astor,  Lenox  and  American 
Bible  Society  libraries.  The  MS.  belongs  to  the  fourth 
century,  and  Teschendorf  supposed  it  might  be  one  of  the 
fifty  copies  which  Constantine  had  prepared  in  331  a.  d. 

T  -^eNeinotsjScpa&oYN 


■*- 


X 


y<*Tg^ 


T<  S 


yjiAf  kON    *» 


Fourth  Cent.     Codex  Vaticanus. — Mark  16:8. 
craaiQ  nai  ovdevi  ov  \  Sev  einov  etyofiovv  \  to  -)ap  : 

9.  The  Vatican  manuscript  (known  as  B)  also  belongs  to 
the  fourth  century,  and  contains  most  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment in  Greek  and  the  New  Testament  to  Heb.  9  :  14.1  It 
is  written  on  fine  vellum,  in  three  columns  of  42  lines  each 
to  a  page.  It  has  759  leaves,  10  by  10^  inches,  and  is  per- 
haps more  carefully  written  than  the  Sinaitic  MS.  It  is  be- 
lieved to  have  been  copied  in  Egypt,  and  was  brought  to 
Rome  in  1448.  Early  in  this  century  it  was  for  a  time  in 
Paris,  but  was  soon  restored  to  Rome,  and  is  kept  in  the 
Vatican  library.  This  MS.  also  shows  numerous  cor- 
rections by  different  hands.  Several  editions  of  it  have 
been  printed:  Tischendorf 's,  Vercellone  and  Cozza's,  and 
the  best,  a  photographic  facsimile,  1890-91.  There  is  another 
Vatican  MS.  B  (No.  2066),  containing  the  Book  of  Reve- 
lation, which  is  of  later  origin  and  belongs  to  the  eighth 

1  The  rest  of  Heb.,  1  and  2  Tim.,  Titus,  Philemon,  and  Rev., only 
are  wanting.    The  order  of  the  books  varies  from  that  in  English  Bibles. 


58  ANCIENT    MANUSCRIPTS    OF   THE    BIBLE. 

century.  The  Vatican  MS.  is  of  the  first  importance  in 
critical  study  of  the  New  Testament  text ;  and  the  Sinaitic 
ranks  next  in  value. 

10.  The  Alexandrian  manuscript  was  sent  from  the  Patri- 
arch of  Constantinople  as  a  present  to  Charles  I.  (1628),  and 
was  placed  in  the  British  Museum,  London,  in  1753.  It  is 
a  vellum  of  773  leaves,  12I  by  iol  inches,  each  page  contain- 
ing two  columns  of  50  lines  each.  It  contains  nearly  the 
whole  of  the  Old  Testament  in  Greek,  and  of  the  New 
Testament  except  Matt.  1  to  25  :  26,  two  leaves  from  John's 
Gospel,  three  from  2  Corinthians,  and  portions  from  the 
edges  of  the  leaves,  carelessly  cut  away  in  binding,  Added 
to  it  are  the  first  Epistle  of  Clement  and  a  part  of  the  sec- 


NApvrtHNOxqroCKAioXorocM 

XI  fOCTO  M  6NKA 1  a  C  HNO\  OroC< 

Fifth  Cent.     Codex  Alexandrinus. — John  I  :  1. 
Et->  apxv  1V  °  %oyog  mi  0  "koyog  rjv  \  Trpog  tov  0[_eo~\i>:  kcii  0[eo]  g  tjv  0  h>yog. 

ond  also.  It  was  probably  written  in  Alexandria  in  the 
fifth  century,  and  has  initial  letters,  and  the  first  four  lines 
of  each  column  of  the  first  page  of  Genesis  in  bright  ver- 
milion ink.  It  was  among  the  first  of  the  uncial  MSS. 
used  by  critical  scholars.  A  photographic  fac-simile  edition 
has  been  published  by  the  British  Museum,  1879-82. 

11.  The  Ephraem  manuscript  is  in  the  National  Library 
at  Paris,  France,  and  consists  of  209  leaves,  64  of  the  Old 
Testament  in  Greek  and  145  of  the  New.  It  was  brought 
to  Florence  from  the  East  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  is 
a  rescript  or  palimpsest  on  vellum ;  that  is,  the  old  writing 
(the  Bible  text)  has  been  partially  effaced  and  some  works 
4 


ANCIENT   MANUSCRIPTS   OF   THE   BIBLE.  59 

of  Ephraem  the  Syrian  were  written  over  it  in  the  twelfth 
century.  The  original  writing  was  known  to  Wetstein 
(1716),  and  edited  by  Teschendorf  (1843-45).  Unfortu- 
nately, large  gaps  occur  in  the  New  Testament  text,  so 
that  37  chapters  of  the  Gospels,  15  of  the  Acts,  45  chap- 
ters of  the  Epistles  and  1 1  of  Revelation  are  missing.  It 
belongs  to  the  fifth  century. 

12.  The  Greco-Latin  manuscript  of  Beza,  in  Cambridge 
University  library,  Eng.,  contains  the  Gospels  and  the  Acts. 
These  are  written  on  vellum,  one  column  of  34  lines  on  a 
page,  the  left-hand  page  presenting  the  Greek  text  and  the 
opposite  right-hand  page  having  the  corresponding  Latin 
version.  The  great  scholar  and  reformer  Theodore  Beza 
says  he  found  the  MS.  in  Lyons  (1562),  and  he  gave  it  to 
Cambridge  University,  England,  in  1581.  The  text  has 
many  and  peculiar  variant  readings,  and  an  addition  after 
Luke  6:5,  that  has  no  parallel  in  other  manuscripts.  The 
Greco-Roman  Manuscript  Laudiamus  used  by  Bede  resem- 
bles the  Beza  text  in  the  Acts. 

13.  New  Manuscripts. — Valuable  old  manuscripts  are 
being  constantly  found  in  old  convents  of  Africa  and  Asia. 
Besides  the  Sinaitic  MS.  found  in  1859,  the  Codex  Rossan- 
ensis  was  found  in  Calabria  in  1879,  a  purple  vellum  of  188 
leaves,  written  in  silver  letters,  having  the  Gospels  of 
Matthew  and  Mark ;  these  Gospels  are  in  the  Beratinus 
MS.,  an  uncial  found  in  Albania,  and  described  in  1886, 
by  Batiffol.  Like  the  Rossanensis,  it  has  the  doxology  to 
the  Lord's  Prayer.  A  Syriac  MS.  was  discovered  at  Sinai 
in  1892-3,  by  Mrs.  A.  S.  Lewis,  which  throws  light  on  the 
true  reading  of  some  disputed  texts. 

The  remaining  uncial  MSS.  are  of  secondary  importance, 
and  do  not  call  for  particular  description. 


60  ANCIENT   MANUSCRIPTS   OF   THE    BIBLE. 

14.  The  Cursives  (or  Minuscules,  "small  letters  ")  are  z 
numerous  class  of  manuscripts,  written  on  vellum  or  parch- 
ment, and  some  on  cotton  or  linen  paper.  They  are  often 
richly  illuminated,  and  date  from  the  ninth  to  the  middle 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  when  they  were  superseded  by 
printed  copies  of  the  Bibie.  About  30  of  them  are  known 
to  contain  the  entire  New  Testament ;  others  have  portions ; 
as  600  the  Gospels,  300  the  Pauline  Epistles,  200  the 
Catholic  Epistles,  100  the  Book  of  Revelation,  while  there 
are  350  Evangelistaries,  that  is,  "lessons"  from  the  Gos- 
pels, and  so  on.  A  number  have  been  critically  collated, 
but  they  do  not  throw  as  important  light  upon  our  present 
text  as  the  older  uncial  manuscripts. 

15.  Hebrew  Manuscripts. — Written  copies  of  the  He- 
brew text  of  the  Old  Testament  are  of  comparatively  re- 
cent age,  the  oldest  of  the  Law  not  being  older  than  840 
a.d.  They  have  all  been  written  since  the  period  of  the 
Massoretes.  The  rule  of  the  old  Talmudists  was  that  all 
faulty  or  imperfect  MSS.  of  their  sacred  books  should  be 
destroyed.  This  may  partially  account  for  the  scarcity  of 
them.  But  about  fourteen  hundred  different  Hebrew  MSS. 
have  been  found  and  examined  by  Hebrew  scholars — chiefly 
Kennicott  and  De  Rossi. 

16.  The  Hebrew  MSS.  are  of  two  classes:  those  pre- 
pared for  use  in  the  synagogue  services,  and  those  intended 
for  private  reading.  The  rules  for  preparing  the  manu- 
script copies  of  the  CWd  Testament  to  be  used  in  public 
worship  were  many  and  very  strict.  The  parchment  must 
be  made  by  a  Jew,  from  the  skin  of  an  animal  that  was 
ceremonially  clean.  The  writing  must  be  in  columns  ex- 
actly equal  in  length.  If  more  than  three  words  were  off 
the  line,  the  whole  work  must  be  thrown  aside.     It  must  be 


ANCIENT   MANUSCRIPTS   OF   THE    BIBLE.  61 

written  with  a  black  ink  made  according  to  a  specific  rec- 
ipe, and  the  forms  of  the  letters  were  minutely  specified, 
as  also  the  spaces,  points  and  use  of  the  pen.  The  work 
must  be  carefully  revised  within  thirty  days  after  the  copy 
was  completed,  and  if  then  there  was  a  letter  wanting  in  a 
word,  or  if  one  letter  touched  another,  the  manuscript  was 
condemned.  Manuscripts  for  private  use  were  subject  to 
less  rigorous  rules.  Although  these  rules  must  have  been 
burdensome  to  copyists,  they  were  very  effective  in  promot- 
ing the  preservation  of  a  purer  text  of  the  Hebrew  Scrip- 
tures. 

17.  The  Hebrew  Text. — It  is  not  easy  to  determine  the 
original  reading  of  the  text  of  the  Old  Testament  for  the 
reasons  already  stated.  It  was  formerly  supposed  that  in 
Hebrew  the  words  were  written  continuously,  as  in  the  an- 
cient Greek  manuscripts,  but  the  discovery  of  the  ancient 
writing  on  the  Moabite  stone  indicates  that  this  was  not  so. 
The  words  on  the  Moabite  stone  are  separated  by  points, 
and  the  text  is  separated  into  parts  or  verses  by  vertical 
strokes.  There  are  about  7000  words  in  the  old  Hebrew 
vocabulary. 

18.  The  Massorah  is  a  collection  of  critical  and  other  notes 
relating  to  the  Hebrew  text  of  the  Old  Testament.  These 
were  intended  to  preserve  the  text  in  a  certain  fixed  charac- 
ter. The  notes  of  the  Massoretes  referred  to — ( 1 )  What  is  in 
the  text?  (2)  What  should  be  in  the  text?  They  counted 
the  letters ;  they  marked  the  wauv  in  Lev.  1 1  :  42  as  the 
middle  letter  in  the  Pentateuch.  They  noted  that  the  let- 
ter aleph  (A)  occurs  42,377  times,  and  beth  (B)  35,288 
times,  and  so  on  of  each  letter  in  the  Hebrew  alphabet. 
They  noted  when  a  word  occurred  only  once,  and  a  multi- 
tude of  other  minute  points  about  the  text. 


62  ANCIENT    MANUSCRIPTS   OF   THE    BIBLE. 

But  in  making  a  new  copy,  they  sometimes  found  a  word 
in  the  written  copy  before  them,  which  they  had  reason 
to  believe  was  incorrect.  They  would  not  alter  it,  but  they 
would  write  in  the  margin  the  consonants  of  the  word  they 
believed  to  be  the  right  one.  Then  they  would  add  under 
the  word  in  the  text  the  vowel  points  of  the  right  word 
which  they  had  written  in  the  margin.  The  word  in  the 
text  they  called  Kethibh — "  What  is  written  ;  "  the  word 
in  the  margin  Keri — "  What  must  be  read." 

19.  Old  Divisions  of  the  Hebrew  Text. — It  was  formerly 
supposed  that  Hebrew  was  written  without  spaces  between 
the  words,  just  as  Greek  manuscripts  of  the  fourth  century 
were  written,  but  this  is  now  believed  to  be  an  error.  For 
the  inscriptions  on  the  Moabite  stone  used  in  the  Siloam 
tunnel  have  marks  or  points  between  several  words.  But 
their  use  was  not  uniform.  The  division  of  the  Hebrew 
text  into  paragraphs  and  breaks  similar  to  our  verses  is 
neither  Babylonian  nor  Palestinian,  but  probably  was  in- 
vented by  the  Massoretes.  It  appears  to  imitate  the  par- 
allelisms of  the  poetical  books.  The  smaller  divisions 
were  called  pesugim,  verses.  The  Babylonians  are  said  to 
have  divided  the  law  into  5888  pesuqim,  the  Psalms  into 
5896,  and  the  Chronicles  into  5880;  but  the  Palestinians 
had  a  different  division.  Larger  sections  of  the  law  were 
grouped  into  parashas  of  two  kinds — "open"  and  "closed." 
The  Law  had  298  open,  and  379  closed  parashas,  the 
former  marked  by  the  Hebrew  letter  Pe,  and  the  latter 
by  Samech.  These  were  grouped  into  54  liturgical 
lessons  for  reading  in  the  synagogue.  The  Prophets  were 
also  in  sections  called  Haphtaras.  References  to  similar 
sections  are  found  in  the  New  Testament,  Mark,  12:26; 
Rom.  11:  2,  where  "the  Bush"  and  "Elijah"  note  the 
topic  of   the  section   quoted.     The  modern    chapter   and 


ANCIENT    MANUSCRIPTS    OF    THE    BIBLE.  ()•') 

verse  divisions  in  Hebrew  Bibles,  however,  were  borrowed 
by  the  Jews  from  the  Christians.  (Chap.  v.  7).  Jacob 
ben  Chajim  (1525),  divided  the  text  into  Sedarim,  chapters, 
which  some  assert  were  based  on  an  earlier  liturgical 
division  for  a  three  years'  course  of  reading  the  Law.  It 
agrees  closely  with  the  old  midrashim,  or  homily  sections. 

20.  Letters  and  Voivel  Points. — Hebrew  is  now  printed 
or  written  in  the  square  character,  which  can  be  traced 
back  to  the  third  century  before  Christ.  But  earlier  it  was 
written  in  the  Phoenician  character,  as  we  know  from  the 
Siloam  inscription.  The  Tel-el-Amarna  tablets  prove  that 
in  the  time  of  Abraham  officials  of  Egypt  and  Palestine 
corresponded  in  the  Babylonian  language,  perhaps  before 
the  Phoenician  character  or  alphabet  was  known.  The 
Hebrew  was  written  without  vowels  or  vowel  points.  They 
were  unknown  to  Jerome  (400  a.  d.),  but  the  precise  date 
of  their  origin  is  obscure.  The  Karite,  or  Babylonian 
system  of  points,  puts  the  vowel  points  above  the  line.  It  was 
not  widely  used.  The  common  system  of  vowel  points  can 
be  traced  to  the  Massoretes  in  the  tenth  century  of  our  era. 
These  Jewish  scholars  were  at  great  pains  to  affix  them  to 
the  text  in  order  to  preserve  the  proper  pronunciation  of 
the  ancient  and  sacred  Hebrew.  The  system  was  prob- 
ably borrowed  from  the  Christian  Syrians,  and  adapted 
to  the  Hebrew  text.  See  Prof.  Margoliouth,  Lines  of 
Defence  of  the  Biblical  Revelation,  p.  224,  London,  1900. 

No  data  are  known  sufficient  to  determine  the  original 
Hebrew  text.  In  the  "Polychrome  Bible"  Prof.  Haupt 
and  others  have  attempted  to  make  conjectural  emendations 
in  the  Massoretic  text,  while  making  a  new  English  version. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE   NEW   TESTAMENT — HOW   ONE   BOOK,  TESTS,   NEW  TESTA- 
MENT  COMPLETED,    HOW    ATTESTED. 

i .  New  Testament  One  Book. — The  twenty -seven  treatises 
or  books  of  the  New  Testament  were  all  written  within  one 
century.  But  they  were  not  made  into  one  book  at  once. 
Written  by  apostles  and  apostolical  men,  aided  by  the 
Holy  Spirit,  the  twenty-seven  books  were  gathered  into  one, 
and  accepted  as  of  divine  authority.  But  the  collection 
was  not  formed  by  decree  of  church  council,  nor  by  some 
individual  church  father,  scholar  or  saint,  nor  by  one  local 
body  of  believers  or  one  church  at  Rome,  Jerusalem,  or 
Antioch. 

2.  The  Result  of  a  General  Agreement. — The  collection 
of  the  various  writings  into  one  book,  now  called  the  New 
Testament,  was  the  result  of  a  general  agreement  among 
all  early  Christians  scattered  over  the  then  known  civilized 
world.  The  line  between  those  writings  which  were  re- 
garded "sacred"  and  of  divine  authority,  and  those  that 
were  "apocryphal,"  was  sharply  drawn  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury. The  persecution  of  Christians  under  Diocletian  (a.d. 
303)  was  directed  against  their  sacred  books  as  well  as 
against  their  faith  and  person.  The  order  was  to  burn  all 
copies  of  their  Scriptures,  and  Christians  were  forced  to 
give  them  up  or  be  condemned  themselves.  Some  gave  up 
their  Scriptures,and  were  branded  as  traditores  (traitors)  by 
their  fellow-disciples.  Others  apparently  complied  by  giv- 
ing up  heretical  or  apocryphal  writings,  and  thus  escaped 
(64) 


HOW    AND    WHEN    ONE    BOOK.  65 

the  censure  of  the  church.  This  implied  a  general  agree- 
ment among  Christians  respecting  what  were  and  what  were 
not  Scriptures  of  divine  authority. 

3.  The  Testing. — The  formation  of  the  entire  New  Tes- 
tament was  a  gradual  process.  While  twenty  books  were 
universally  accepted,  seven  were  questioned  by  some  and 
tested  severely.  Hebrews  and  James,  though  accepted  early 
by  the  Syrian  churches,  were  so  tested ;  2  and  3  John  and 
Jude  also,  though  early  received  by  Western  churches,  and 
Revelation  also  by  the  churches  of  Asia  Minor.  But  finally 
all  the  books  now  in  the  New  Testament  were  universally 
accepted  as  of  divine  authority,  and  no  other.1 

4.  The  Tests. — Christians  coming  out  of  Judaism  had 
deep  reverence  for  the  Old  Testament.  The  New  Testa- 
ment writers  quote  it  about  three  hundred  times.  The 
idea  of  a  new  collection  of  sacred  writings,  which  should 
be  held  in  like  veneration  with  the  Old,  was  of  slow  growth 
among  early  Christians.  But  it  grew  out  of  the  spirit  of 
the  old.  And  Protestant  Christians  have  with  great  unan- 
imity accepted  the  collection  of  sacred  books  accepted  by 
the  early  Christian  church  in  the  third  and  fourth  centuries. 

The  crucial  tests  which  a  book  must  pass  before  it  could 
be  accepted  as  of  divine  authority  do  not  come  within  the 
scope  of  this  book.  The  purpose  here  is  to  state,  histo- 
rically, what  writings  were  accepted.  It  may  be  proper, 
however,  to  add  that  Protestants  require  more  than  the 
external  testimony  of  the  church  to  certify  what  writings 
are  sacred  and  of  divine  authority.  Thus  Luther  against 
Eck  said,  "A  council  cannot  make  that  to  be  of  Scripture 


1  See  Weiss,  Intro.,  vol.  i.  p.  119  ff. ;   Schaff,  Hist.  Christn.  Church, 
vol.  iii.  p.  608  ff. ;   Eusebius,  H.  E„  bk.  iii.  25,  bk.  vi.  25. 


QQ  THE  new  testament: 

which  is  not  by  nature  Scripture."  Calvin  called  it  "  a 
most  pernicious  error"  to  hold  "that  the  Scriptures  have 
only  so  much  weight  as  is  conceded  to  them  by  the  suffrages 
of  the  church;  as  though,"  he  adds,  "the  eternal  and  in- 
violable truth  of  God  depended  on  the  arbitrary  will  of 
men."  (Inst,  i  :  7.)  Scripture  must  be  God-given,  by 
men  inspired  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  declare  a  divine  rule 
of  faith.  Added  to  this,  the  test  of  the  right  of  a  book 
to  a  place  in  the  Scriptures  may  be  stated  as  threefold : 

(1)  external  evidence,  as  the  historic  testimony  of  the  church; 

(2)  internal  evidence  from  the  book  itself,  determined  in 
part  by  the  consensus  of  Christian  scholarship;  and  (3)  wit- 
ness of  the  Spirit  to  the  truth  and  authority  of  the  word  in 
the  heart  of  believers.  See  2d  Helvetic  Conf.,  chaps,  i., 
ii.  ;  Gallican  Conf.,  art.  iv. ;  Belgian,  art.  v. ;  Thirty-nine 
Articles,  art.  vi.  ;  Scotch  Conf.,  1560,  art.  xix.  ;  Westmin- 
ster Conf.,  art.  i.,  §  2-5  ;  Reuss,  Hist.  Canon,  313. 

5.  Books  not  Accepted. — Under  these  tests,  a  mass  of' 
Christian  and  sub-apostolic  writings  were  not  accepted  as  of 
divine  authority.  The  Epistles  of  Barnabas,  of  Clement 
and  the  Shepherd  of  Hernias  were  read  in  some  churches, 
but  never  widely  ranked  with  the  accepted  books  of  the  New 
Testament.  So  spurious  Gospels  (about  fifty  are  known) 
of  the  Hebrews,  of  Nicodemus,  Acts  of  Paul  and  Thekla, 
Epistle  to  the  Laodiceans,  and  Apocalypse  of  Peter,  and 
many  others,  were  never  classed  with  the  N.  T.  books. 

6.  Formation  in  the  Western  Church. — In  marking  the 
process  of  gathering  apostolic  writings  into  one  New  Tes- 
tament, let  it  be  noticed  that  councils  and  the  great  Chris- 
tian Fathers  did  not  decide  nor  so  strongly  discuss  what 
writings  ought  to  be  included,  as  declare  what  in  fact  were 
accepted  and  included  among  those  of  divine  authority.    It 


HOW   AND   WHEN   ONE   BOOK,  67 

appears,  however,  that  generally,  early  Christians  devoutly 
applied  substantially  the  same  principles  to  test  the  nature 
of  each  book  of  the  New  Testament  as  later  Protestant 
Christians  have  applied.  The  early  Christians  clearly  re- 
quired that  the  books  must  be  written  by  an  apostle  or 
apostolic  men,  and  must  have  been  adopted  for  reading  in 
public  service. 

In  the  western  church  all  the  writings  now  in  the  New 
Testament  were  readily  acknowledged,  except  Hebrews. 
The  hesitation  in  respect  to  Hebrews  sprang  largely  from 
the  uncertainty  as  to  the  author.  Some  held  that  it  was 
written  by  Paul,  but  many  doubted  its  Pauline  authorship. 
The  frequent  contact  of  western  with  eastern  Christians, 
however,  and  the  studies  of  Origen,  Ambrose,  Augustine, 
Rufinus  and  Jerome,  led  to  the  general  acceptance  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  in  the  western  church  about  the 
close  of  the  fourth  century,  and  the  New  Testament  col- 
lection was  "closed"  as  we  now  have  it.  The  West  had 
no  desire  to  include  other  writings  beyond  these  in  the 
Scriptures.     See  Weiss,  Intro.,  vol.  i.  p.  137. 

7.  Formation  in  the  Eastern  Church. — It  was  a  more  dif- 
ficult process  to  perfect  the  collection  of  New  Testament 
writings  in  the  East.  At  a  very  early  period  at  least  twenty 
books  were  admitted  without  question.  These  were  some- 
times spoken  of  as  homologoumena,  that  is,  "  acknowledged." 
Two  others  were  generally  "acknowledged;"  but  five 
were  called  antilegomena,  literally,  "spoken  against," 
meaning  that  some  were  in  doubt  whether  they  had  a  right 
to  a  place  in  the  collection  or  not.1 

Eusebius  wrote  a  history  of  the  church  in  the  fourth 
century.  In  his  narrative  of  the  first  and  second  centuries 
he  gives  a  statement  of  the  books  of  the  New  Testament. 

1  See  Eusebius,  bk.  iii.  :  25 ;  vi.  :  25. 


68  THE  NEW  testament: 

He  asserts  that  twenty  books  were  acknowledged  without 
question.  Some  hesitated  to  accept  Revelation,  "  but 
others  rank  it  among  the  genuine. ' '  Among  the  antilegom- 
ena,  or  books  that  were  questioned,  although  he  says 
"they are  well  known  and  approved  by  many,"  he  men- 
tions James,  Jude,  2  Peter,  2  and  3  John — in  all  five.  He 
then  refers  to  several  books  as  spurious — as  the  Acts  of  Paul, 
Shepherd  of  Hermas,  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  Revelation  of 
Peter,  and  Institutions  of  the  Apostles.  When  Eusebius 
comes  to  the  period  of  Origen,  he  quotes  the  testimony  of 
that  Father,  that  the  Revelation  of  John  and  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  were  then  accepted,  but  reports  that  some 
still  have  doubts  respecting  2  Peter  and  2  and  3  John,  al- 
though he  implies  that  the  many  receive  them  as  genuine 
portions  of  Scripture.     H.  E.  vi.  25. 

8.  Early  Catalogue  of  New  Testament  Books. — In 
the  writings  that  have  been  preserved  of  the  early  Chris- 
tian Fathers  of  the  first  four  centuries,  not  less  than  eight 
or  ten  catalogues,  more  or  less  complete,  of  the  books  of 
the  New  Testament  are  given,  and  scores  of  writers  quote 
from  the  New  Testament  books  as  of  divine  authority.1 
When  it  is  considered  how  very  small  a  portion  of  those 
early  writings  has  come  down  to  us,  this  evidence  will  be 
counted  of  great  value.  Augustine  gives  a  full  list  corre- 
sponding to  those  now  accepted,  as  do  Athanasius,  Jerome 
and  Eusebius.  Some  of  these  omit  Revelation,  and  some 
Hebrews  also.  In  all  the  Christian  writings  of  importance 
belonging  to  that  early  period  that  have  come  down  to  us, 
the  books  of  the  New  Testament  are  referred  to,  quoted  or 
accepted  as  sacred  and  of  divine  authority.     The  citations 

1  See  Laidner's  works. 


HOW   AND   WHEN   ONE   BOOK.  69 

by  some  of  these  early  writers,  as  Justin  Martyr  of  the  sec- 
ond century,  and  Origen,  would  fill  a  volume.  These  ref- 
erences and  quotations  are  widely  distributed,  including 
writers  of  each  century,  from  those  of  Clemens  Romanus 
and  Ignatius  of  the  first  century  to  those  of  Augustine, 
Chrysostom  and  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  near  the  close  of  the 
fourth  century. 

9.  Process  of  Forming  the  Collection. — The  beginning  and 
the  steps  in  the  process  of  gathering  the  sacred  writings 
into  one  book  of  divine  authority  rest  in  some  obscurity. 
Yet  the  main  features  are  indicated  in  the  fragmentary 
works  of  contemporary  writers,  and  accord  with  similar 
known  facts  of  history. 

While  the  apostles  were  proclaiming  the  gospel,  Chris- 
tians looked  to  them  for  authoritative  instruction,  and  did 
not  feel  the  need  of  written  teachings  upon  matters  of  faith 
and  belief.  Yet  Paul  wrote  brief  instructions  to  the 
churches  he  had  planted  at  Thessalonica  and  in  Galatia, 
which  are  now  generally  acknowledged  to  be  the  earliest 
written  books  in  the  form  found  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  date  from  about  the  middle  of  the  first  century.1  Most 
of  the  books  have  internal  evidence  that  they  were  written 
before  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  a.d.  70;  that  all  of  them  date 
before  the  end  of  the  first  century  has  been  successfully 
showr*      Some  critical  scholars  of  the  destructive  school 

1  Papias,  of  Hierapolis,  in  the  early  part  of  the  second  century, 
speaks  of  fttftXia — books  from  which  the  commands  of  the  Lord  might 
be  known — and  alludes  to  a  history  written  by  Mark,  and  a  collection 
of  "sayings"  in  Hebrew  made  by  Matthew.  Even  the  epistles  of 
Barnabas  and  of  Clement  clearly  have  statements  in  almost  the  exact 
words  of  Matthew.  The  second  epistle  of  Clement  and  the  Didache 
have  clear  evidence  of  the  influence  of  Luke's  Gospel.  Compare 
Weiss,  Intro.,  i.  38,  39. 


70  THE  NEW  testament: 

who  have  sought  to  maintain  a  later  date  have  been  forced 
to  abandon  their  position  and  concede  a  date  not  far  from 
the  close  of  the  first  century. 

As  the  number  of  Christians  increased,  and  became  too 
numerous  for  the  apostles  and  their  immediate  disciples  to 
instruct  orally,  there  was  a  necessity  for  writings  of  authority 
to  preserve  the  church  in  purity  and  prevent  serious  here- 
sies and  unbelief.  In  fact,  history  tells  us  that  divisions 
and  heretical  views  did  prevail  in  many  quarters,  and  even 
that  spurious  works  were  written  and  circulated  under  the 
cover  of  apostolic  names.  The  true  believers,  therefore, 
gathered  the  genuine  writings  of  the  apostolic  age,  and  the 
New  Testament  collection  began  to  be  formed.1  In  the 
second  century,  Christian  writers,  as  Dionysius  of  Corinth 
and  Theophilus  of  Antioch  (a.d.  180),  refer  to  the  "Script- 
ures of  the  Lord  "as  of  the  same  authority  as  the  Old 
Testament.  The  testimony  of  history  is  clear  that  twenty 
books,  comprising  eight-ninths  of  the  entire  New  Testa- 
ment, were  thus  generally  accepted  as  Holy  Scripture  by 
the  early  Christians  from  170  a.d.  and  onward. 

10.  Completion  of  the  New  Testament.—  Although  the 
other  seven  books  already  mentioned  were  more  slow  in 
securing  universal  acknowledgment,  yet  they  were  finally 
so  accepted,  while  others,  as  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  and 
the  Shepherd  of  Hennas,  were  rejected.  The  sharp  perse- 
cutions which  the  early  Christians  endured,  called  for  a 
most  careful  and  devout  spiritual  testing  of  every  writing ; 
for  the  acceptance  of  a  work  as  "sacred"  and  of  divine 
authority  might  put  their  lives  in  jeopardy.  It  was  only 
natural  that  some  should  hesitate  to  accept  a  few  books, 
perhaps  less  known  from  their  small  size  or  the  peculiar 
character  of  their  contents  than  were  the  other  books.     It 

^ee  \  12,  p.  70. 


HOW   AND   WHEN   ONE   BOOK.  71 

is  not  inconsistent  with  this  natural  process  of  gathering  the 
books  of  the  New  Testament  to  hold,  as  some  do,  that  the 
Gospels  and  Acts  were  early  formed  into  one  collection,  to 
which  the  apostolic  teachings  were  added.  Nor  is  it  im- 
probable that  these  apostolic  epistles  were  circulated  by 
themselves  for  a  brief  period.  But  that  they  were  finally 
accepted  in  the  face  of  such  circumstances  is  strong  proof 
of  their  title  to  a  place  in  the  New  Testament.  The 
Council  of  Carthage  (397  a.d.)  declared  that  "besides  the 
canonical  Scriptures,  nothing  [is  to]  be  read  in  the  church 
under  the  title  of  divine  Scriptures."  It  then  adds  a  list 
of  the  books  accepted  as  canonical,  which  besides  the  Old 
Testament  includes  the  twenty-seven  New  Testament  books 
and  no  others. 

In  this  gradual  process  of  sifting  out  of  the  mass  of  writ- 
ings of  the  apostolic  period,  and  of  testing  and  settling  which 
were  of  divine  authority,  we  find  that  while  several  books 
were  on  the  line  of  doubt  and  some  were  rejected,  only 
seven  of  the  New  Testament  books  were  ever  on  that  line, 
and  that  these  stood  the  test  and  were  finally  admitted. 
The  chief  hesitation  was  over  five  of  these  books,  compris- 
ing only  about  one-thirty-sixth  part  of  the  entire  New 
Testament. 

11.  Attested  by  the  Church  and  the  Spirit. — The  conclu- 
sion is  that  the  great  body  of  early  Christians,  the  general 
church  of  Jesus  Christ,  of  every  speech,  East  and  West, 
Syrian,  Asiatic,  African  and  European,  devoutly  seeking 
to  know  the  mind  of  Christ,  was  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God 
to  fix  upon  these  twenty-seven  books  and  no  others  as  the 
New  Testament  Scriptures  having  divine  authority  as  the 
word  of  God.  This  is  far  more  satisfactory,  and  gives  us 
a  much  stronger  attestation  and  assurance  of  the  purity 


72  THE    NEW   TESTAMENT. 

and  authority  of  this  collection  as  the  word  of  God,  than  if 
it  had  been  made  and  decreed  by  a  church  council,  or  only 
by  the  early  Christian  Fathers,  as  Augustine,  Jerome,  Ter- 
tullian,  Origen,  Irenaeus,  Cyril,  Justin  Martyr  or  Polycarp. 
They  testify  that  the  church  universal,  guided  by  the  Spirit, 
did  receive  these  books  as  the  word  of  God ;  and  thus  the 
promise  of  Christ  to  the  apostles  was  fulfilled  :  "  When  he, 
the  Spirit  of  truth,  is  come,  he  shall  guide  you  into  all  the 
truth"  (John  16:  13,  Revised  Version) 

12.  Order  of  Acceptance. — Some  hold  that  as  each  Gospel 
or  Epistle  was  written  it. was  added  to  the  Jewish  Old 
Testament  as  Scriptures.1  But  the  prevailing  view  is  that 
the  Synoptic  Gospels  were  received,  and  that  another  col- 
lection of  apostolic  epistles  was  also  circulated,  and  that 
these  were  later  joined  into  one  collection,  forming  the 
Christian  Scriptures,  the  New  Testament.  Such  titles  early 
used  as  "  Memoirs  of  the  Apostles,"  "  Gospels,"  "Apos- 
tolicon"  the  former  relating  to  the  life  of  Christ,  the  latter 
to  the  work  and  letters  of  the  apostles,  imply  that  there 
were  first  some  separate  collections  and  individual  books, 
as  "Acts"  and  "Apocalypse,"  which,  being  accepted 
separately  as  authoritative,  were  brought  into  one  collec- 
tion, the  New  Testament.  This  is  further  implied  by  2  Pet. 
3,  15,  16,  where  Paul's  Epistles  appear  to  be  classed  with 
"other  Scriptures."  Whatever  view  of  the  order  of  the 
acceptance  of  the  twenty-seven  books  be  taken,  it  is  cer- 
tain they  were  received  as  having  divine  authority.2 

1  Canon  of  New  Testament,  Prof.    B.  B.  Warfield,  D.  D.,  LL,  D., 

Phila.,  1894. 

3  Alexander  on  the  Canon;  Prof.  F.  R.  Wynne,  D.  D.,  Literature 
of  the  Second  Century,  N.  T.  Canon,  pp.  79-89,  N.  Y.,  1892.  New 
Testament,  its  Contents,  Prof.  W.  Sanday,  D.  D.,  1896. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

NEW  TESTAMENT  BOOKS  :  WRITERS,  COMPOSITION  AND  CON- 
TENTS— SVNOPTIC  GOSPELS,  ACTS,  PAUL'S  EPISTLES, 
HEBREWS,  EPISTLES  OF  JAMES,  PETER,  JOHN  AND  JUDE, 
REVELATION — TABLE   OF    BOOKS. 

i.  The  Writers. — The  twenty-seven  books  of  the  New 
Testament  were  written  by  eight  or  nine  writers  in  the 
first  century  of  our  era.  Four  or  five  of  the  writers  were 
called  apostles  (Matthew,  John,  Peter,  Paul,  and  possibly, 
but  not  probably,  James),  and  three  or  four  were  evange- 
lists and  apostolic  men  (Mark,  Luke  and  Jude).  The 
writer  of  one  book  (Hebrews)  is  not  certainly  known,  and 
whether  2  Peter  was  written  by  that  apostle  is  a  question 
that  has  lately  been  revived. 

These  writers  varied  widely  in  temperament,  talents,  edu- 
cation and  traits  of  character.  Paul  was  the  accomplished 
scholar,  a  profound  thinker,  true  and  lofty  in  character — 
the  greatest  of  the  apostles.  He  was  called  to  be  an 
Apostle  to  the  Gentiles  by  Jesus  Christ,  "  through  the 
will  of  God."1  Luke  was  the  Greek  medical  scholar; 
Matthew  the  shrewd,  practical  man  of  business,  con- 
versing with  equal  facility  in  either  Aramaic  or  Greek. 
John  was  the  prosperous  fisherman,  meditative,  the  Chris- 

1  See  Acts  26  :  16,  17,  compared  with  I  Cor.  9: 1,  2,  and  Gal.  I  :  I, 
Eph.  1 :  1,  with  1  Cor.  1  :  1. 

(73) 


74  NEW    TESTAMENT    BOOKS. 

tian  philosopher,  with  deep  affections.  Peter  was  impul- 
sive, ardent,  energetic,  self-confident,  a  born  leader  of 
men.  Thus  the  writers  represented  many  phases  of  life 
and  of  Christian  experience. 

In  eighteen  of  the  New  Testament  books  the  names  of 
the  writers  are  distinctly  stated  in  avowal  of  their  author- 
ship. The  titles  to  the  books  now  given  in  the  Bible 
were  not  affixed  by  the  original  writers,  but  are  of  com- 
paratively recent  origin.  The  ancient  titles  varied  in  dif- 
ferent copies,  and  generally  were  brief.  For  example,  the 
title  to  the  Hebrew  letter  was  not  "  The  Epistle  of  Paul 
the  Apostle  to  the  Hebrews,"  but  simply  "To  the 
Hebrews".  This  must  be  kept  in  mind  in  considering 
the  question  of  the  author  of  each  book. 

The  names  of  the  authors  of  nine  books  must  be  ascer- 
tained, if  at  all,  from  other  sources,  such  as  the  testimony  of 
Christians  in  the  period  immediately  following  the  Apostolic 
era,  and  by  internal  evidence  found  in  the  books  themselves, 
since  the  titles  are  not  a  part  of  the  books.  Thus  the 
structure,  style,  topics  and  allusions  in  a  book  may  agree 
so  well  with  what  is  known  of  the  person  to  whom  a  work 
is  imputed,  as  fully  to  discover  the  authorship.  Six  of  the 
eight  or  nine  writers  of  the  New  Testament  books  have 
been  identified  beyond  reasonable  question.  Concerning 
two  of  the  others,  James  and  Jude,  it  is  not  yet  settled 
which  of  the  several  persons  called  James  and  Jude,  or 
Judas,  was  the  writer  of  the  respective  epistles  bearing 
these  names.  Who  wrote  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  is 
also  a  question  that  has  been  discussed  since  the  days  of 
Origen  (186-253  a.  d.),  and  is  still  unsettled.  The  writers 
of  twenty-three  of  the  twenty-seven  New  Testament  books 
have  been  identified  beyond  reasonable  doubt.     The  others 


GROUPS    OF    BOOKS.  75 

are  accepted  as  authoritative,  though  the  writers  are  not 
yet  surely  identified. 

2.  Groups  of  Books. — The  first  three  Gospels — Matthew, 
Mark  and  Luke — are  often  called  the  "Synoptic  Gospels" 
(from  two  Greek  words),  meaning  "seen  together,"  and 
are  so  designated  because  of  the  amount  of  matter  common 
to  the  three.  This  large  amount  of  common  material  in 
them,  was  due  either  to  some  early  written  documents,  or, 
more  likely,  to  the  oral  teaching  of  the  apostles  while 
they  were  proclaiming  the  gospel  in  Palestine. 

The  "Synoptic  Gospels"  were  primarily  written  for 
different  circles  of  readers,  while  the  Fourth  Gospel  was 
written  to  persuade  all  readers  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ, 
the  Son  of  God. 

The  Epistles  of  Paul  and  of  other  apostles  were  also 
current  among  the  churches,  and  some  of  them  admitted 
for  reading  at  public  services  of  congregations  at  an  early 
period,  probably  before  our  Gospels  existed  in  their  pres- 
ent form.  But  writings  of  the  apostles  only,  and  of  those 
who  wrote  under  apostolic  direction  or  influence,  were  so 
accepted.  Apostolic  letters  appear  to  have  been  collected 
and  designated  "  Apostolicon."  And  besides  these  "  The 
Acts,"  the  catholic  or  general  Epistles  and  the  Apoca- 
lypse were  read  in  worship  and  circulated  under  the  com- 
mon name  "The  Apostles,"  though  seldom  were  all  con- 
tained in  one  manuscript. 

The  books  are  now  often  grouped  into  three  classes,  cor- 
responding to  the  threefold  divisions  of  the  Jewish  Scrip- 
tures: (i)  Historical,  five  books  ;  (2)  Didactic  and  epistol- 
ary, twenty-one  books ;  (3)  Prophetic,  one  book.  They 
are  also  spoken  of  as  "The  Gospels,"  "  The  Acts,"  "The 
Epistles"  (Pauline  and  Pastoral)  and  "Revelation." 


76  DATE    OF    WRITING    THE    BOOKS. 

The  order  of  the  books  in  ancient  collections  varied 
slightly,  and  was  not  the  same  as  in  our  English  New  Testa- 
ment. Sometimes,  though  rarely,  the  order  of  the  Gospels 
was  Matthew,  Mark,  John,  Luke.  The  catholic  or  gen- 
eral Epistles  sometimes  followed  The  Acts,  then  Epistles 
of  Paul  and  Revelation. 

3.  Date  of  Writing  the  Books. — With  much  confidence, 
the  date  of  the  composition  of  the  first  three  Gospels  and 
of  The  Acts  may  be  placed  within  a  period  of  fifteen  years, 
55  to  70  a.  D.  The  date  of  Paul's  Epistles  may  be  put  in 
four  periods,  roughly  about  five  years  apart.  The  two 
letters  to  the  Thessalonians  come  in  the  first  period,  about 
52-53  a.  d.,  and  probably  were  the  earliest  written  of  the 
twenty-seven  New  Testament  books.  In  the  second  period 
are  four  Epistles — 1  and  2  Corinthians,  Galatians  and 
Romans,  about  57-58  a.  d.  In  the  third period  are  four — 
Philippians,  Ephesians,  Colossians  and  Philemon,  about 
61-63  a.  d.,  and  in  the  fourth  period  three — Titus,  1  and  2 
Timothy,  about  65-67  a.  d.  The  catholic  Epistles  of 
James,  Peter  and  Jude  may  be  approximately  assigned 
between  60  and  70  A.  d.  Some  put  James  in  40-44  a.  d., 
but  on  insufficient  grounds.  The  Gospels,  Revelation 
and  Epistles  of  John  must  be  placed  latest,  75  (?)  to  95 
A.  D.     See  table  at  end  of  the  chapter. 

4.  Matthew's  Gospel — Was  it  written  in  Hebrew?  His- 
torical testimony  from  the  first  half  of  the  second  century 
affirms  that  the  first  gospel  was  written  by  Matthew,  one 
of  the  twelve,  who  was  also  called  Levi.  Papias,  bishop 
of  Hierapolis  (130-160  a.  d.),  says:  "  Matthew  composed 
the  *  Logia '  (or  Oracles  of  our  Lord)  in  the  Hebrew 
tongue,  and  every  one  interpreted  them  as  he  was  able." 
Irenaeus,  bishop  of  Lyons,   about   180  a.   d.,  also  says  it 


MATTHEW    IN    GREEK:    CONTENTS    OF    FIRST    GOSPEL.      77 

was  originally  written  in  Hebrew,  and  adds  that  it  was 
■'  while  Peter  and  Paul  were  preaching  at  Rome  and  found- 
ing the  church."1 

The  earliest  witnesses  agree  that  the  Gospel  was  first 
written  in  Hebrew,  that  is,  Aramaic.  How  this  was  related 
to  a  so-called  "Gospel  of  the  Hebrews"  current  in  the 
second  century  is  an  unsettled  question.  It  is  agreed  that 
the  fragments  preserved  are  not  from  Matthew's  Hebrew 
Gospel,  though  they  may  be  based  upon  it. 

5.  Matthew  in  Greek. — But  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  as 
we  now  have  it,  reads  like  a  Greek  original.  Certain  pas- 
sages in  which  it  agrees  with  Mark  and  Luke  indicate  that 
the  writer  used  a  Greek  source.  How  can  it  be  that  the 
Gospel  was  written  in  Hebrew,  and  yet  our  Greek  copy 
not  be  a  translation  ?  An  answer  is  not  difficult.  Mat- 
thew, as  a  tax  collector,  would  become  familiar  with 
Aramaic  and  Greek.  For  Hebrews,  he  would  naturally 
have  first  written  his  Gospel  in  Aramaic.  Then  the  Hel- 
lenistic Christians  would  desire  it  in  Greek,  and  he  proba- 
bly wrote  it  in  Greek  also  for  them.  The  Hebrew  copy 
has  perished,  and  the  Greek  alone  has  been  preserved. 
There  is  a  similar  parallel  in  the  writings  of  Josephus  in 
the  same  era.  His  history  of  the  Jewish  wars  was  first 
written  in  Aramaic,  but  afterwards  in  Greek.  The  Aramaic 
copy  has  perished  ;  the  one  in  Greek  has  been  preserved  to 
our  time. 

6.  Contents  of  First  Gospel. — Matthew  was  the  gospel 
Herald  for  the  Hebrews.  He  proves  from  their  Scriptures 
that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah.  His  Gospel  narrates  the 
descent  and  birth  of  Jesus,  the  preaching  of  John  the 
Baptist,  the  baptism,  temptation  and  Galilaean  ministry  of 

1  See  Eusebius,  H.  E.  3  :  39. 


78  mark's  gospel:  contents. 

Jesus,  his  final  teachings  and  passion,  resurrection,  appear- 
ance and  commission  to  disciples. 

It  alone  gives  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  quite  fully, 
three  miracles  (two  blind  men,  dumb  demoniac,  and  money 
in  the  fish),  and  eleven  parables  (tares,  hid  treasure,  pearl, 
drag-net,  unmerciful  servant,  laborers,  two  sons,  marriage 
of  king's  son,  ten  virgins,  ten  talents,  sheep  and  goats), 
and  incidents  connected  with  the  events  of  passion  week, 
not  found  in  the  other  Gospels.  It  is  the  Gospel  of  Dis- 
courses and  for  the  Hebrews.     His  symbol  is  a  man. 

7.  Mark's  Gospel. — Historic  testimony  confirmed  by 
internal  evidence  has  uniformly  declared  Mark  to  be  the 
author  of  the  second  Gospel.  Beyond  reasonable  doubt 
he  is  the  same  as  John  Mark,  son  of  Mary,  at  whose 
house  in  Jerusalem  Peter  found  the  disciples  praying.  Acts 
12:21.  Papias,  bishop  of  Hierapolis  (135  a.  d.),  states 
"the  elder  [John]  used  to  say,  Mark  having  become  inter- 
preter [secretary]  to  Peter,  wrote  accurately,  but  not  in 
order,  all  that  he  remembered  of  the  things  that  were  said 
and  done  by  Christ."  Irenaeus  also  says :  "  Mark,  the  dis- 
ciple and  interpreter  of  Peter,  himself  also  wrote  and 
handed  to  us  what  Peter  preached."  And  Clement  of 
Alexandria  reports  that  Mark  wrote  by  request  of  Peter's 
hearers  at  Rome.  Compare  also  1  Pet.  v.  13  with  Col. 
4:  10,  and  2  Tim.  4:  11,  showing  that  Mark  was  probably 
twice  in  Rome. 

8.  Contents. — Mark's  Gospel  is  graphic,  realistic,  pic- 
turesque, vivid  in  description,  concise,  yet  touched  with 
minute  detail  that  give  life  to  the  narrative.  It  is  a  photo- 
graphic representation  of  the  ministry  of  Jesus.  It  was  a 
Gospel  for  the  businesslike  and  practical  Roman.  It  pre- 
sents Jesus  as  the  God-man  and  the  miracle-worker.     Ara- 


luke's  gospel:  contents.  79 

maic  expressions  and  Hebrew  customs  are  explained  for 
his  Roman  readers  (see  3:17;  5:41;  7:3,4,11,34; 
14:  36),  and  Latin  words  and  idioms  are  frequent,  as 
"  legion,"  "centurion,"  "  quadrantes,"  "  Alexander  and 
Rufus."  A  large  part  of  the  matter  is  common  with  Mat- 
thew and  Luke.  Two  miracles,  a  parable  and  the  incident 
of  the  young  man  only  are  peculiar  to  Mark.  The  last 
twelve  verses,  Mark  16  :  9-20,  may  have  been  added  by 
him  or  another  writer  before  the  Gospel  was  put  in  circu- 
lation, as  they  are  wanting  in  some  ancient  copies. 

9.  Luke's  Gospel. — As  Mark's  Gospel  represents  the 
teaching  of  Peter,  so  the  third  Gospel  represents  the  teach- 
ing of  Paul.  That  this  Gospel  and  The  Acts  were  written 
by  the  same  person  is  fairly  proven  by  the  opening  sen- 
tence of  the  respective  books  (compare  Luke  1  :  3  with 
Acts  1  :  1),  and  also  by  the  structure  and  style  of  the  two 
treatises.  History  testifies  that  Luke  was  a  physician  (Col. 
4  :  14),  a  Greek,  a  companion  of  Paul  (2  Tim.  4  :  11).  The 
internal  evidence  from  the  books  themselves  confirm  this 
testimony.  From  100  to  400  medical  terms  have  been 
pointed  out  in  Luke  and  The  Acts. 

10.  Contents. — The  characteristics  of  Luke's  Gospel  are 
a  copious  vocabulary,  better  Greek,  and  more  detailed  narra- 
tive than  in  either  of  the  other  Gospels.  A  large  amount  of 
the  matter  is  peculiar  to  Luke.  Six  miracles,  sixteen  para- 
bles, the  birth  of  Jesus,  the  visit  of  the  shepherds,  the  presen- 
tation in  the  temple,  the  boy  Jesus  with  the  doctors,  mission 
of  the  seventy,  almost  the  entire  Peraean  ministry,  the  walk 
to  Emmaus,  and  many  other  details,  are  given  by  Luke 
alone.  These  are  in  addition  to  the  matter  given  in  com- 
mon with  Matthew  and  Mark.  Hence  Luke's  was  the 
Gospel  for  the  Greeks,  the  Gentile  readers  of  his  age.     It 


80  John's  gospel. 

is  a  candid,  manly,  conscientious,  orderly,  history  of  the 
Christian  religion  established  by  the  apostles  and  attested 
to  the  writer  by  these  eye-witnesses. 

ii.  John's  Gospel. — Ancient  historical  evidence  uni- 
formly testified  that  the  Apostle  John  was  the  writer  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel.  His  authorship  of  it  was  fiercely 
assailed  in  the  nineteenth  century,  but  the  discussions 
and  recent  discoveries  have  strengthened  the  historic  evi- 
dence. It  was  ascribed  to  John  by  Irenaeus,  a  pupil  of 
Polycarp,  the  friend  and  companion  of  John,  by  Clement, 
and  is  quoted  by  Justin  Martyr,  and  was  combined  in  the 
Diatessaron,  or  Harmony  of  the  Four  Gospels,  by  Tatian, 
c.  170  a.  D.,  of  which  Arabic  and  Armenian  versions  have 
lately  been  found.1  The  internal  evidence  from  the  book 
itself  is  also  strong,  proving  that  the  writer  was  a  Pales- 
tinian Jew,  an  eye-witness,  the  "  apostle  whom  Jesus.loved," 
and,  therefore,  John,  the  son  of  Zebedee. 

In  the  face  of  this  irrefragable  evidence,  the  late  efforts 
to  deny  that  John  wrote  the  Fourth  Gospel,  because  a  plain 
fisherman  would  not  be  qualified  to  write  such  a  book,  or 
that  the  same  person  could  not  be  the  author  of  the  book 
of  Revelation  and  of  so  dissimilar  a  work  as  the  Gospel,  are 
shallow  and  savor  of  "begging  the  question  "  under  color 
of  specious  argument.  Few  would  believe  a  priori  that  a 
poor  tinker  like  Bunyan  could  have  written  the  most 
famous  uninspired  book  in  the  world,  the  Pilgrim' s  Pro- 
gress;  yet  no  sane  person  doubts  that  Bunyan  did  write  it. 
And  who  can  doubt  that  the  Apostle  John,  taught  three 
years  by  a  divine  Teacher,  followed  by  a  long  life  of  study, 
observation  and  experience  in  Christian  truth,  and  guided 
by  the  Holy  Spirit,  could  write  the  Gospel  ascribed  to  him, 

1  See  also  "Authorship  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,"  Ezra  Abbot,  Boston. 


CHARACTER    AND    CONTENTS  :    THE    ACTS.  81 

and  also  possess  versatility  enough  to  write  a  work  like  the 
Revelation  ?  Literary  writers  on  secular  topics  of  far  less 
training  and  experience  show  a  wide  versatility. 

12.  Character  and  Contents. — From  early  times  it  has 
been  called  the  "Spiritual  Gospel."  It  draws  aside  the 
veil  revealing  to  us  "  the  heart  of  Christ,"  the  mystery  of 
the  Son  of  God  and  Son  of  man,  in  a  sublimity  of  thought, 
a  depth  of  spiritual  philosophy  and  a  wealth  of  language 
that  lift  us  into  a  new  world,  giving  us  a  glimpse  of  heavenly 
and  eternal  realities. 

He  aims  to  convince  his  readers  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ, 
the  Son  of  God.  20:31.  His  Gospel  declares  Jesus  as 
Creator,  Messiah,  Son  of  God,  his  glory  flashing  forth 
among  the  Jews  in  miracles  and  divine  teachings.  He 
gives  long  personal  discourses  on  the  deepest  things  of  God 
and  religion.  It  is  peculiar  in  these  respects  and  in  declar- 
ing events  that  preceded  and  attended  the  beginnings  of 
human  history.  It  alone  narrates  the  Judsean  ministry  of 
Jesus,  presenting  a  series  of  divine  manifestations  and 
mighty  conflicts  between  the  powers  of  darkness  and  the 
Author  of  Light  and  Life.1 

13.  The  Acts. — The  Acts  has  been  described  as  the 
second  historical  book,2  of  which  the  third  Gospel  is  the 
first.  It  is  the  sequel,  or  supplement,  to  that  Gospel. 
Historical  testimony,  internal  evidence  and  undesigned 
coincident  testimony  combine  to  show  that  The  Acts  was 
written  by  Luke,  the  "beloved  physician,"  the  companion 
of  Paul.  The  theory  that  The  Acts  is  of  composite  or 
unknown  authorship    has    been    argued  by  some   modern 

1  See  "Commentary  on  John,"  revised  edition,  1900.  By  Edwin 
W.  Rice,  D.  D.,  pp.  17-24. 

2  Prof.  W.  M.  Ramsay,  in  "  Nelson's  Bible  Treasury."     1896. 


82         THE    THEME    AND    CONTENTS:    PAUL'S    EPISTLES. 

critics/  but  has  no  historic,  and  slender  evidential  support, 
nor  does  it  explain  the  facts  as  satisfactorily  as  the  historic 
view  that  Luke  was  the  author.2 

"  Of  all  the  companions  of  St.  Paul,"  says  Prof.  Sanday, 
"  Luke  is  the  one  who  best  satisfies  the  conditions  of  the 
problem,  and  he  is  named  by  an  unwavering  tradition." 

The  Theme  and  Contents. — The  theme  of  the  book  may 
be  regarded  chiefly  as  the  Acts  of  Peter  and  Paul.  The 
narrative  centres  about  the  mission  work  of  these  great 
apostles.  It  records  briefly  in  the  first  part  (chaps,  i  to  12) 
the  beginnings  of  Christianity  at  Jerusalem,  the  pentecostal 
gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  evangelizing  power  of  the 
apostles  in  the  face  of  persecution  from  Jewish  rulers,  the 
plea  of  Stephen  the  martyr,  the  spread  of  Christianity  to 
Samaria  by  Philip  the  evangelist,  by  Peter  to  Gentiles 
in  Judaea,  and  by  Barnabas  and  Saul  in  Antioch  and  Syria. 

The  second  part  (chaps.  13  to  28)  treats  of  Paul's  three 
missionary  journeys  to  Cyprus,  Asia  Minor,  Macedonia  and 
Achaia;  his  arrest;  his  defence  before  the  Sanhedrin, 
before  Felix,  Festus,  and  Agrippa,  and,  after  two  years  in 
prison  at  Caesarea,  his  appeal  to  Caesar,  his  voyage  and 
shipwreck,  and  arrival  at  Rome,  where,  while  prisoner  for 
two  years,  he  preached.  And  with  this  the  narrative 
abruptly  ends. 

14.  Paul's  Epistles. — Thirteen  of  the  Epistles  (not 
counting  Hebrews)  claim  the  apostle  Paul  as  their 
author.  They  all  belong  to  the  latter  half  of  Paul's  apos- 
tolic ministry.     They  are  placed  in  four  groups,  according 

1  "  History  of  Christianity  in  the  Apostolic  Age."  Prof.  A.  C. 
McGiffert,  D.  D.     New  York,  1897,  pp.  237,  433  ff. 

2  "  Blass.  Acta  Apostolorum  ;  "  Prof.  W.  M.  Ramsay  ;  A.  C.  Head- 
lam  in  "  Hasting's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible;  "  Art.,  Acts. 


ROMANS:    1    AND   2    CORINTHIANS.  83 

to  dates.  See  sec.  3.  Some  have  seen  related  doctrines 
prominent  in  the  Epistles  of  each  of  these  groups,  as: 
(1)  The  Lord's  second  coming;  (2)  justification  by  faith; 
(3)  the  person  of  Christ,  and  (4)  pastoral  duties. 

Ten  of  them  were  used  by  the  heretic  Marcion  (c.  140 
A.  d.),  and  are  generally  accepted  as  genuine.  The  three 
pastoral  Epistles  to  Timothy  and  Titus  are  still  questioned 
by  some  critics,  but  have  been  maintained  as  genuine  by 
unanswerable  evidences.  All  the  thirteen  are  distinctly 
recognized  in  the  Muratorian  Fragment,  a  historical  docu- 
ment written  about  170  a.  d.  Four  epistles,  1  and  2  Corin- 
thians, Romans  and  Galatians  have  been  universally 
admitted,  practically  without  question,  to  be  by  Paul. 
The  others  are  supported  by  the  strongest  external  and 
internal  evidences. 

15.  Romans. — This  was  written  to  disciples  at  Rome, 
which  the  apostle  had  not  then  visited,  and  belongs  to  the 
second  group  of  his  letters.  It  begins  with  proof  of  the 
universal  guilt  of  mankind,  of  God's  gift  of  righteousness 
by  faith,  of  Christ  and  his  righteousness  offered  for  all,  of 
Israel  and  the  salvation  of  Gentiles,  of  various  duties  as 
Christians  in  society,  the  State  and  the  Church,  and  ends 
with  salutations  from  the  apostle  and  six  or  eight  of  his 
fellow-laborers  to  nearly  thirty  Christians  by  name  at 
Rome. 

16.  1  and  2  Corinthians. — These  epistles  belong  also  to 
the  second  group,  and  were  written  to  the  disciples,  in 
Corinth,  a  wealthy,  worldly,  licentious  Greek  city.  In 
the  first  letter,  after  salutation,  Paul  rebukes  their  factious 
and  sectarian  spirit,  and  their  sinful  intercourse  with 
heathen,  in  impurity  and  lawsuits,  then  answers  their  letter 
to  him  about   marriage  and   heathen   feasts,  gives  advice 


84  GALATIANS  \    EPHESIAN-s. 

respecting  public  worship,  on  spiritual  gifts,  on  love,  and 
closes  with  a  declaration  of  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrec- 
tion. 

In  the  second  letter,  after  salutation  and  an  explanation 
of  his  change  of  plan,  that  disappointed  them,  Paul  com- 
mends their  wise  action  in  a  case  of  discipline,  and  urges  a 
collection  for  poor  saints  at  Jerusalem,  affirms  his  apostolic 
authority,  and  his  independence  of  support  among  them, 
and  closes  with  warnings  and  Christian  salutations. 

17.  Galatians. — This  letter  was  addressed  to  a  group  of 
churches  in  Galatia.  The  topics  and  treatment  resemble 
those  in  the  letter  to  the  Romans.  The  contents  have 
been  roughly  put  into  three  parts — personal,  doctrinal, 
practical.  (1)  Paul  answers  for  his  apostolic  authority  and 
his  gospel  by  sketching  his  divine  call,  his  recognition  by 
apostles,  his  controversy  with  Peter.  (2)  He  teaches  that 
faith  is  greater  than  Judaism,  and  can  alone  save,  since 
the  law  does  not  destroy  it,  refers  to  the  past  zeal  of  the 
Galatians  and  to  their  present  coldness.  (3)  Urges  them  to 
use  their  liberty  not  as  license,  but  in  love,  with  sympathy 
and  liberality,  and  warns  them  against  falling  back  into 
Judaism  ;  he  glories  in  the  cross  of  Christ. 

18.  Ephesians. — From  the  absence  of  the  usual  saluta- 
tions, and  from  the  omission  of  the  words  "  to  the  saints 
which  are  at  Ephesus,"  in  two  ancient  manuscripts,  it  has 
been  inferred  that  this  letter  was  originally  sent  to  a  group 
of  churches  of  which  Ephesus  may  have  been  the  chief. 
It  belongs  to  the  third  group  of  epistles,  those  of  the 
imprisonment. 

The  apostle  treats  of  the  power  and  grace  of  Christ,  the 
privileges  and  unity  of  the  saints  in  Christ,  and  closes  by 
urging   them   to   walk   worthy  of  their  calling,   privileges 


PHILIPPIANS:    CHARACTER    AND    CONTENTS.  85 

and  gifts,  not  like  the  old  man  of  sin,  but  the  new  man  in 
Christ;  tells  of  the  relation  of  husband  and  wife,  of  chil- 
dren and  parents,  of  the  armor  of  God,  and  asks  for  their 
prayers  in  his  trials. 

19.  Philippians. — It  is  generally  admitted  that  Paul 
wrote  this  epistle,  the  historic  evidence  being  very  strong 
for  it.  Tertullian,  200  a.  d.,  affirms  that  it  was  all  along 
read  and  acknowledged  by  the  church  of  Philippi. 

Character  and  Contents. — It  has  a  strong  personal  char- 
acter, breaking  out  in  warm  salutation,  thanksgiving  and 
prayer,  and  a  cheerful  report  of  his  personal  circumstances, 
imprisonment,  and  of  the  gospel  in  Rome.  He  urges 
humility  from  the  humility  of  Christ,  tells  of  his  intended 
movements,  warns  against  Judaism,  formalism  and  mistak- 
ing liberty  for  unlawful  license,  rejoices  in  the  aid  sent  by 
them,  closing  with  a  joyful  benediction. 

20.  Colossians. — The  peculiar  phrase  and  style  of  this 
epistle  has  caused  some  recent  critics  to  question  its  Pauline 
authorship.  But  the  historic  testimony  is  practically 
unbroken,  and  the  late  objection  from  apparent  novelty 
in  language  and  teaching  as  compared  with  Paul's  earlier 
epistles  have  small  weight  against  uniform  testimony,  and 
the  conceded  fitness  of  the  epistle  to  Paul's  known  circum- 
stances. 

21.  Character  and  Contents. — It  strongly  resembles  the 
letter  to  the  Ephesians,  written  about  the  same  time. 
After  salutation,  thanksgiving  and  prayer,  the  apostle 
declares  Christ  as  the  Redeemer,  the  image  of  God,  head  of 
all  things.  To  him  they  owe  their  reconciliation,  and  should, 
therefore,  be  steadfast.  He  then  warns  them  to  cling  to 
Christ — that  old  ordinances  are  done  away  by  Christ,  and 
formal  and  angel  worship  should  not  be ;  they  have  died 


86  1    AND    2    THESSALONIANS. 

in  him  and  should  live  to  Christ;  passions  should  be 
restrained,  graces  cultivated,  daily  and  domestic  duties 
practiced ;  his  personal  state  would  be  given  by  Tychi- 
cus.  He  closes  with  salutations  and  a  message  about  Mark 
and  about  his  own  epistles.  Seventy-eight  of  155  verses 
of  Ephesians  have  expressions  like  those  found  in  the 
Colossians. 

22.  1  a?id  2  Thessalonia?is. — The  external  evidence  that 
these  letters  were  written  by  Paul  is  full,  uniform,  and  has 
not  been  successfully  questioned.  Some  modern  critics 
have  argued  that,  because  the  language  and  subjects  differed 
from  the  later  epistles  ascribed  to  Paul,  he  could  not  be 
the  author.  Or,  from  the  unlikeness  of  the  others,  these 
could  not,  nor  could  either  of  them  have  been  Paul's. 
Thus  they  argue  in  a  circle.  But  their  theories  have  been 
repeatedly  shown  to  be  untenable.  The  Thessalonian 
letters  are  generally  held  to  be  by  Paul  and  the  earliest 
written  of  his  epistles. 

23.  Topics  of  1  Thessaloniafis. — The  great  theme  of 
this  letter  is  the  second  coming  of  Christ.  Paul  warmly 
recognizes  their  faith  and  works,  chap.  1  ;  excuses  and 
defends  his  sudden  and  reluctant  departure  from  them, 
chap.  2  ;  tells  of  his  love,  joy  and  prayers  for  them,  chap.  3  ; 
exhorts  them  to  live  godly,  holy,  loving,  industrious  lives, 
because  the  Lord  will  come,  chap.  4;  for  whose  coming 
they  should  watch  joyfully,  and  gives  various  precepts  for 
right  daily  living,  chap.  5. 

24.  Topics  of  2  Thessalonians. — The  purpose  of  2  Thes- 
salonians  was  briefly  to  encourage  the  readers  under  perse- 
cution to  correct  mistaken  inferences  from  his  first  letter, 
and  to  guard  them  against  unauthorized  teaching.  A 
marked  passage,  like  an  episode,  is  the  prediction  of  "a 


1    AND    2    TIMOTHY,    AUTHOR.  87 

falling  away  from  the  faith,"  chap.  2  :  1-12,  probably  refer- 
ring to  two  great  tendencies,  to  secular  ambition  and  to 
ungodly  socialism,  a  sign  of  the  coming  of  Christ  in  power 
and  glory. 

25.  1  and  2  Timothy,  Author. — These  with  Titus  and 
Philemon  have  been  called  pastoral  epistles.  The  first  two 
belong  to  the  latest  group  of  Paul's  Epistles.  From  their 
marked  individuality  some  modern  critics  argue  that  Paul 
could  not  have  been  the  author.  But  the  conjecture  that 
the  Epistles  to  Timothy  are  from  a  later,  or  the  second 
century,  has  proved  untenable,  their  peculiarity  accounted 
for  and  their  Pauline  authorship  abundantly  confirmed. 
Within  the  second  century  the  first  epistle  was  universally 
accepted  as  Paul's,  and  a  similar  condition  has  been  main- 
tained in  regard  to  the  second  epistle. 

26.  Topics  in  1  Timothy. — Paul  instructs  Timothy  to 
reprove  wrong  speculations,  to  preach  the  gospel  as  Paul 
had  done  \  gives  rules  for  public  prayer,  for  conduct  of 
women,  for  choosing  of  bishops  and  deacons,  tells  him 
how  to  conduct  himself,  advises  respecting  widows,  elders, 
servants,  heresy,  covetousness,  the  rich  and  fidelity. 

27.  Topic  of  2  Timothy. — This  has  uniformly  been 
regarded  as  Paul's  farewell  message  to  his  spiritual  son, 
Timothy.  Paul  warmly  commends  Timothy,  with  grief 
mentions  the  defection,  the  heresy  of  some,  refers  to  the 
kindness  of  Onesiphorus,  urges  Timothy  to  faithfulness  and 
constancy  in  face  of  enemies,  tells  of  perilous  times  from 
evil  men  ;  rejoices  that  Timothy  was  early  trained  in  the 
Jewish  Scriptures,  charges  him  to  be  firm,  then  declares 
that  his  own  (Paul's)  course  is  run,  and  closes  with  affec- 
tionate words  for  fellow-laborers  and  friends. 

28.  Titus. — This  short  letter  is  conspicuous  for  Pauline 


88  TITUS  :    HEBREWS,    AUTHORSHIP. 

characteristics.  It  tells  Titus  the  qualifications  for  elders, 
the  bad  character  of  the  Cretans,  the  duty  of  various 
classes  called  to  be  Christians,  bases  exhortations  upon 
what  Christ  has  done  for  them,  and  closes  with  personal 
messages  and  greetings. 

29.  Philemon. — This  short,  loving  letter  was  written  in 
behalf  of  a  runaway  slave,  who  had  found  his  way  to  Rome 
and  been  led  to  Christ.  Paul  would  gladly  have  retained 
him,  but  sent  him  back  to  his  master,  Philemon,  urging 
the  master  to  be  considerate  and  receive  the  servant  into 
his  confidence  again.  Philemon  seems  to  have  been  a 
loving,  faithful  disciple,  probably  having  Apphia  for  his 
wife  and  Archippus  for  his  son,  a  delightful  Christian 
household. 

30.  Hebrews,  Authorship. — Among  the  Eastern  churches 
in  ancient  times  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  was  generally 
accepted  as  the  work  of  Paul.  A  few  held  that  Paul  might 
have  written  an  original  letter  in  Hebrew,  which  some  dis- 
ciple translated  and  perhaps  expanded  it  from  other  teach- 
ings of  the  apostle.  Pantsenus  of  Alexandria  declares  that 
Paul  wrote  it,  as  Eusebius  reports.  But  the  western 
churches  hesitated  to  receive  this  epistle,  for  they  were  not 
assured  that  it  was  written  by  Paul.  In  the  fourth  century 
the  West  accepted  it  as  Paul's,  and  it  was  universally 
received  as  part  of  Scripture.  Origen  said  it  has  thoughts 
worthy  of  Paul,  but  who  wrote  it  only  God  certainly 
knows.  The  Westminster  Confession  accepts  it  as  canoni- 
cal, but  does  not  include  it  among  the  Epistles  of  Paul.  The 
prevailing  view  is  now  that  Paul  was  not  the  author.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  its  present  title  was  not  prefixed 
by  the  author,  but  is  of  comparatively  recent  date.  The 
arguments  which  are  used   to  prove  that  Paul  was  not  the 


CHARACTER  :    CATHOLIC    EPISTLES.  89 

author  are  almost  equally  strong  against  Luke  or  any  dis- 
ciple of  Paul.  Of  others  suggested  the  most  probable  are 
Barnabas  or  Apollos.  There  is  no  historic  testimony  for 
Apollos,  but  there  is  some  external  evidence  in  favor  of 
Barnabas,  since  Tertullian  refers  to  him  as  the  writer  to 
the  Hebrews.  But  the  authorship  is  an  unsettled  question. 
It  was  written,  probably,  to  the  Jews  in  Palestine,  and  the 
greeting  with  which  it  ends  leads  to  the  inference  that  it 
was  written  from  Rome. 

31.  Character. — The  great  theme  of  the  epistle  is  the 
superiority  of  Christ  to  Moses,  of  his  priesthood  to  that 
of  Aaron,  and  of  which  Milchizedek  was  the  type.  Upon 
this  is  based  a  strong  exhortation  for  the  Hebrew  Christians 
not  to  fall  back  from  the  faith  of  Christ  into  Mosaic  wor- 
ship. The  new  way  and  dispensation  had  all  the  strength 
and  glory  of  the  old,  with  the  added  glory  that  it  is  not 
transitory,  but  eternal.  The  eleventh  chapter  contains  a 
notable  definition  of  faith,  and  a  magnificent  panegyric 
concerning  the  sublime  faith  of  the  Old  Testament  heroes. 
It  closes  by  commending  the  exercise  of  this  faith  to  the 
readers,  and  to  the  daily  practice  of  various  Christian 
duties. 

32.  Catholic  Epistles. — Since  the  fourth  century  seven 
epistles — James,  1  and  2  Peter,  1,  2  and  3  John,  Jude — 
have  been  called  "The  Catholic"  or  "General  Epistles." 
The  term  was  probably  first  applied  to  three  only  (James, 
1  Peter  and  1  John),  but  later  to  the  entire  seven.  The 
term  implies  that  the  letters  were  primarily  intended  for  a 
wider  circle  of  readers  than  a  single  congregation  of  Chris- 
tians. This  appears  to  be  the  case  with  five  of  the  letters, 
while  two  of  them  (2  and  3  John)  are  addressed  to  indi- 
viduals.    In  some  ancient  Greek  manuscripts  these  epistles 


90  JAMES,    THE    AUTHOR. 

were  placed  next  to  The  Acts  and  before  Paul's  Epistles,  as 
elsewhere  stated.  Five  of  these  short  books  were  classed 
among  the  Antilegomena — literally,  "spoken  against," 
because  some  questioned  them  ;  so  they  were  not  univer- 
sally accepted  among  early  Christians  until  about  the  fourth 
century.  The  Council  of  Laodicea,  364  a.  d.,  and  the 
Council  of  Carthage,  397  a.  d.,  listed  them  as  accepted. 

33.  James,  The  Author. — The  James  who  wrote  this 
epistle  was  evidently  known  to  the  Jews  of  "  the  disper- 
sion," to  whom  it  was  addressed,  and  whose  pastoral 
authority  was  not  questioned.  He  was  not  James,  the  son 
of  Zebedee,  for  the  letter  was  written  after  the  persecution 
in  which  Herod  slew  that  James.  The  facts  respecting 
James,  the  "bishop"  of  Jerusalem  (Acts  1,5:13;  Gal. 
2  :  9),  best  suits  the  external  and  internal  evidence  in 
regard  to  the  author  of  this  epistle.  James  of  Jerusalem 
is  held  by  many  to  be  the  same  as  "James,  the  Lord's 
brother."  Gal.  1 :  19.  The  eastern  church  also  regarded 
that  James  as  the  son  of  Joseph  and  Mary,  or  the  son  of 
Joseph  by  a  former  marriage. 

But  Jerome  says  James,  the  author  of  this  epistle,  is  the 
same  as  "James  the  less,"  son  of  Alphaeus,  a  cousin  of  the 
Lord.  The  term  "brother"  was  sometimes  used  broadly 
to  include  cousins.  In  the  latter  case  this  James  would  be 
one  of  the  twelve  apostles.  Either  view  has  grave  difficul- 
ties, and  the  matter  is  unsettled. 

The  epistle  was  accepted  from  the  first  by  Syrian  Chris- 
tians and  is  in  the  Syriac  version.  Later  it  was  received 
by  the  eastern  churches  generally,  and  finally  by  all,  as 
Scripture.  Luther  questioned  it  from  a  mistaken  view  of 
its  teachings,  thinking   it   contrary  to  those  of  Paul.     But 


CHARACTER    AND    TOPICS.  91 

Prof.  Sanday  and  others  have  proved  that  the  two  agree  in 
opposing  Pharisaic  orthodoxy. 

The  date  of  the  epistle  has  been  placed  by  some  at  44 
to  50.  This  would  make  it  the  earliest  of  New  Testament 
writings.  Others  with  greater  probability  put  it  about  60 
to  63  a.  d.,  since  this  would  give  time  for  the  growth  of 
practices  and  doctrines  reproved  in  the  epistle. 

34.  Character  and  Topics. — The  Epistle  of  James  is  a 
collection  of  moral  precepts — the  New  Testament  "Book 
of  Proverbs."  His  theme  is:  "Be  ye  doers  of  the  word 
and  not  hearers  only."  1:22.  Ask  wisdom,  resist  tempta- 
tions, show  kindness  to  poor  and  rich,  avoid  boasting, 
have  faith  that  works  (chaps.  1,  2),  control  the  tongue, 
avoid  strife,  trust  in  God's  providence  (chaps.  3,  4),  be 
patient  in  trials,  pray  over  the  sick,  win  souls  (chap.  5). 
These  are  a  few  of  the  many  topics  of  this  epistle  rich  in 
instruction. 

35.  1  Peter. — This  epistle  is  strongly  attested  as  the  work 
of  Peter.  Traces  of  its  early  use  and  internal  evidence 
point  to  Peter  as  the  author.  It  was  written  for  Jewish 
Christians  in  Asia  Minor,  unless  the  first  sentence  of  the 
letter  is  to  be  taken  in  a  broad  spiritual  sense,  as  meaning 
spiritual  exiles  bound  for  the  heavenly  Canaan.  See  1  Peter 
2:11.  This  view  is  possible,  but  the  literal  meaning  seems 
more  natural  and  consistent. 

The  place  and  date  are  uncertain,  possibly  from  Rome 
(if  Peter  was  ever  there),  and  about  60-65  A-  D- 

36.  Character  and  Topics. — It  aims  to  give  hope  under 
persecution,  proclaiming  Christ,  his  incarnation,  sacrifice 
and  the  new  birth,  exhorting  to  faithful  living,  to  hope 
through  holiness  and  holiness  through  Christ  (chaps.  1,  2). 
This  leads  him  to  urge  blameless   living — in   the  family, 


92  2    PETER.    THE    AUTHORSHIP. 

and  society,  and  when  persecuted  (chaps.  3,  4),  to  obedi- 
ence and  fidelity  in  faith,  which  perfects  Christian  character 
(chap.  5). 

37.  2  Peter,  The  Authorship. — This  is  sharply  disputed 
now.  Its  genuineness  was  questioned  widely  even  in  the 
early  church.  It  was  the  last  book  to  take  its  place  as 
New  Testament  Scripture.  But  after  this  searching  ques- 
tioning it  was  admitted.  Origen,  Eusebius  and  Jerome 
refer  to  doubts  respecting  its  genuineness,  but  the  latter 
says  they  were  due  to  its  differences  in  style  and  thought 
from  the  first  epistle,  which  he  ascribes  to  the  use  of  differ- 
ent interpreters  by  Peter  ;  that  is,  secretaries.  Prof.  San- 
day  regards  this  as  a  probable  view,  and  this  may  also 
explain  its  resemblance  to  the  Epistle  of  Jude.  It  resem- 
bles Jude  in  an  allusion  to  false  teachers,  to  rebel  angels,  to 
Sodom,  and  to  corruptors  like  Balaam. 

There  are  two  leading  views  in  regard  to  the  authorship. 
(1)  Either  it  is  by  Peter,  as  it  claims  to  be;  or  (2)  it  is  a 
forgery.  The  latter  view  is  held  by  some  modern  critics.1 
But  against  this  view  many  critics  urge  that  wilful  forgery 
is  disproved  by  internal  evidence.  Moreover,  the  writer 
was  familiar  with  the  contents  of  the  first  epistle  (see  2  Pet. 
3  :  1).  Now,  a  wilful  forger  writing  the  second  would  have 
been  likely  to  imitate  the  first  epistle  in  his  introduc- 
tion and  closing,  or  doxology,  and  to  have  used  elsewhere 
similar  expressions  to  the  first  in  order  to  have  his  work 
appear  genuine.  Neither  of  these  has  the  writer  done,  as 
we  would  expect  a  forger  to  do.  Two  forged  works  pur- 
porting to  be  by  Peter,  lately  discovered,  show  how  inferior 
the  forgeries  usually  were  to  the  second  epistle.  Again, 
this  epistle    has    many   verbal    coincidences  with    Mark's 

1  See  Principal  Chase  in  Hasting's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible. 


JOHN  S    EPISTLES. 


93 


Gospel  written  under  Peter's  influence,  and  with  Peter's 
addresses  reported  in  The  Acts.1  The  question,  however, 
is  still  an  open  one,  though  the  work  has  been  and  still  is 
accepted  as  that  of  Peter. 

38.  John' s  Epistles. — Three  epistles  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment are  ascribed  to  John.  The  first  was  generally 
received  by  the  early  church  as  written  by  John,  the 
"beloved  disciple,"  and  one  of  the  twelve.  It  was  used 
by  Polycarp  and  Papias,  disciples  of  John,  and  also  by 
Irenaeus,  Clement  and  Tertullian.  The  three  epistles  are 
also  in  the  earliest  lists  of  New  Testament  books,  about 
1 70  a.  d.  In  contents  and  style  the  first  epistle  agrees 
well  with  the  fourth  Gospel.  It  was  intended  to  guard 
against  false  teachings,  and  to  confirm  the  faith  of  believers 
in  Jesus  as  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God.  It  was  probably 
first  written  for  Christians  at  Ephesus  and  that  region. 

The  second  and  third  Epistles  of  John  were  widely  but 
not  universally  received  as  the  letters  of  John,  although 
the  writer  calls  himself  elder  or  presbyter  rather  than 
apostle.  The  second  letter  was  probably  written  to  a  per- 
son whose  proper  name  was  Kyria,  or  it  is  possible  that 
the  term  was  used  in  a  figurative  sense  and  meant  the 
church  ;  possibly  the  church  in  this  woman's  house,  similar 
to  that  in  the  house  of  Aquila  and  Priscilla  (1  Cor.  16 :  19 ; 
Romans  16:  3,  5).  It  expresses  joy  for  her  sons,  exhorts 
to  love,  warns  against  deceivers,  and  closes  with  a  Christian 
greeting.  The  third  epistle  is  addressed  to  Gaius,  or  more 
correctly  Caius — possibly  the  same  who  is  mentioned  in 
1  Cor.  1:14;  Romans  16:23.  The  writer  commends 
Gaius  and  his  Christian  hospitality,  warns  him  against  a  false 
teacher,  and  commends  to  him  the  one  who  delivers  the  letter. 

1  See  Lumby  in  Speakers'  Commentary. 


94  JtTDE  :    REVELATION,    THE    AUTHOR. 

39.  Jude. — This  short  epistle  was  distinctly  recognized 
by  Clement,  Tertullian,  Origen  and  the  author  of  the 
Muratorian  Fragment.  Which  Jude  was  the  "  brother  of 
James"  partially  depends  upon  which  James  is  intended. 
Jude  was  not  probably  an  apostle,  or  he  would  have  written 
as  an  apostle.  He  cites  some  apocryphal  books,  as  book 
of  Enoch,  and  Origen  says  Assumption  of  Moses.  But 
Paul  cites  from  heathen  poets,  so  that  this  fact  should  not 
affect  its  authority.  His  epistle  has  striking  resemblances 
to  the  second  Epistle  of  Peter.  This  has  been  explained 
on  the  supposition  that  the  two  writers  used  a  common 
document,  but  later  critics  regard  the  resemblances  either 
as  coincidences,  or  suppose  that  the  second  letter  of  Peter 
may  have  been  unconsciously  influenced  by  the  language 
and  expression  of  Jude.  It  was  apparently  written  for 
Jews  in  Palestine,  64-67  a.  d. 

Contents. — After  greeting,  the  writer  warns  against  false 
teachers,  who  will  share  the  fate  of  unbelievers,  of  fallen 
angels  and  of  Sodom.  They  resemble  Cain  and  Balaam, 
and  are  those  of  whom  Enoch  foretold.  Believers  are  to 
keep  themselves  in  the  love  of  God. 

40.  Revelation,  The  Author. — The  external  evidence  for 
the  Apostle  John  as  the  author  of  the  Apocalypse  or  Revel- 
ation is  clear  and  strong.  It  was  so  received  by  the 
western  church,  and  upon  this  book  the  first  known  com- 
mentary in  the  New  Testament  was  written.  It  was  made 
by  Melito,  bishop  of  Sardis,  and  the  book  is  quoted 
repeatedly  by  Justin  Martyr  and  Papias.  The  eastern 
church,  however,  hesitated  to  admit  the  work  to  be  John's, 
and  to  put  it  with  New  Testament  literature,  apparently 
because  of  certain  millenarian  views.  Hence  Dionysius 
of  Alexandria  suggested  it  was  possibly  written  by  another 


THEMES    AND    CONTENTS.  95 

John,  a  presbyter,  basing  his  idea  upon  the  differences  of 
style  and  expression  in  it,  as  compared  with  those  in  the 
fourth  Gospel.  But  these  differences  can  be  accounted  for 
by  the  different  circumstances  under,  which  the  two  works 
were  written.  The  date  of  the  writing  is  yet  unsettled, 
some  being  disposed  to  place  it  quite  early  before  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and  others  quite  late,  in  the  last 
decade  of  the  first  century. 

41.  Themes  and  Contents. — The  interpretation  of  this 
confessedly  obscure  book  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  of 
Biblical  problems.  Clearly  the  work  is  full  of  symbols, 
and  is  written  in  symbolic  language. 

After  an  introduction  and  a  description  of  the  speaker 
there  follow  seven  themes  or  sections :  (1)  Messages  to  seven 
churches  of  Asia,  chaps.  1-3.  (2)  A  vision  of  the  court 
of  heaven,  the  sealed  book  and  the  opening  of  seven  seals, 
chaps.  4-7.  (3)  The  seven  trumpets,  chaps.  9-1 1. 
(4)  Seven  symbolic  figures,  sun-clothed  woman,  red  dragon 
and  war,  man-child,  seven -headed  beast  out  of  the  sea, 
two-horned  beast  from  the  earth,  the  Lamb  on  Zion, 
the  cloud-borne  Son  of  man,  chaps.  12-14.  (5)  Seven 
angels  with  seven  plagues  in  seven  golden  bowls,  chaps. 
15,  16.  (6)  Judgment  of  Christ's  foes,  marriage  of  the 
Lamb,  Satan  bound,  chaps.  17-20.  (7)  New  heaven  and 
new  earth,  with  farewell  words,  chaps.  21,  22. 

There  are  three  groups  of  interpretations  of  the  Revela- 
tion of  John:  (1)  That  it  predicted  events  connected 
with  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  and  persecutions  of  disci- 
ples. (2)  That  it  predicts  future  changes  attending  the 
end  of  the  world.  (3)  That  it  is  being  gradually  fulfilled 
in  the  course  of  human  history.  Attempts  to  give  a 
detailed  application  of   its  symbols  to  special  events  or 


96 


TABLE  OF  NEW  TESTAMENT  BOOKS. 


great  crises  in  history  have  not  been  generally  satisfactory. 
It  may  be  regarded  as  presenting  a  panoramic  view,  a 
series  of  great  symbolic  pictures  of  the  periods  or  long 
eras — eons — of  history  to  the  end  of  the  Christian  dispen- 
sation. It  is  intended  to  give  comfort  under  daily  bur- 
dens, courage  in  facing  terrible  persecutions  and  sufferings, 
and  solid  peace  and  hope  in  view  of  the  glories  that  await 
the  disciples  of  the  Lord  in  the  City  of  God. 

Thus,  while  the  Old  Testament  begins  with  the  Creator 
and  closes  with  an   impending  curse,  the  New  Testament 
begins  with  a  Saviour  and  ends  with  a  benediction. 
Table  of  New  Testament  Books. 

By  whom,  to  whom,  when  and  where  written,  and  the  subject  of  each 

book. 

N.  B. — The  dates  are  approximate  only.  The  place  of  writing  is  also  not  certain. 
The  titles  of  the  books  and  the  statement  at  the  end  of  the  Epistles  in  our  English 
version  are  not  by  the  original  writer,  but  were  added  by  some  subsequent  hand. 


Book, 


Matt.... 
Mark... 

Luke  ... 

John 

Acts 

Rom.... 

i  Cor.... 

2  Cor 

Gal 


Eph 

Phil 

Col 

i  Thess. 


Whiter. 


Matthew. 
Mark 

Luke 

John 

Luke 

Paul 


Where 
Written. 


Judaea  — 
Rome  (?)., 

Caesarea  or 
Rome(?) 

Ephesus  or 
Patmos1.. 

Rome 

Corinth  .... 

Ephesus  ... 

Mac'donia 
Ephesus... 

Rome 


Date. 


60-64  1. 
60-67... 

58-65-. 
85-90  2 
61,  66... 

58 

57 


To  Whom. 


57 

57,  58- 

61-63..., 


61-63. 
61-63., 


.Corinth  ....  53. 

I  I 


Jewish  Christ'ns 
Roman  Christ'ns 

Theophilus 

All  Christians.... 


Theophilus 

Roman  Christ'ns 
Ch.  at  Corinth... 

Ch.  at  Galatia... 

Ch.  at  Ephesus.. 

Ch.  at  Philippi.. 
Ch.  at  Colosse.. 

Ch.  atThessal'a 


Topic. 


Jesus  the  Messiah. 

Jesus  the  Son  of 
Man. 

Jesus  the  World's 
Redeemer. 

Jesus  the  Eternal 
Son  of  God. 

Planting  of  Apos- 
tolic Churches. 

Sin  and  Grace. 

[Unity  and  Resur- 
rection in  Christ. 

Christian  Graces. 

Salvation  by  Faith. 

Principles,  Life 
and  Unity  of  the 
Church. 

Personal  Counsels. 

Correcting  False 
Doctrines. 

Holiness  aiid  Sec- 
ond Coming. 


1  A  Hebrew  original  may  have  been  written  as  early  as  45  A.  d. 

2  Whether  the  last  chapter  is  an  appendix  or  not,  it  is  quite  clear  that  21  :  24,  25 
was  added,  probably  by  the  Church  at  Ephesus,  before  the  publication  of  the  gos- 
pel. Thus  it  may  have  been  written  while  John  was  first  at  Ephesus,  but  not  cir- 
culated until  his  exile  in  Patmos. 


I1  ABLE    OF    NEW    TESTAMENT    BOOKS. 


97 


Table  of  New  Testament  Books — Continued. 


Book. 


2  Thess. 

i  Tim... 
2  Tim... 
Titus.... 

Philem., 

Heb 

James... 
i  Peter.. 

2  Peter. 

i  John.., 

2  John.., 

3  John.., 


Jude 
Rev.. 


Writers. 


Paul 


Corinth.... 


Paul,  Barnabas 
or  Apollos  (?)  a 

James,  brother 
of  the  Lord  (?) 

Simon  Peter 


Apostle  John. 


Jude 

Apostle  John. 


Where 
Written, 


Date. 


To  Whom. 


53- 


Mac'donia  57  or  651 

Rome 64  or  671 

65 


Mac'donia 
Rome 


Italy  (?).... 
Jerusalem. 
Babylon... 


Ch.  at  Thessal'a, 
Timothy 


61-63 

63-66 

45  or  63 
64 


Titus 

Philemon. 


Judaean  Chris'ns 


[Scattered  Jewish 


Christians  . 


jTo  all  Christians 


Topic. 


Ephesus...  J90-95 ! Believers.... 

"         ...  j     "     'Elect  Lady. 

'     "     iGaius 


Jerusalem, 
Patmos  (?) 


65-68..  ..  Jewish  Chris'ns. 
68  or  96  ,  Seven  ch's,  Asia. 


Correcting  Wrong 
Views  of  First 
Letter. 

Duties  of  Church 
Officers. 

Triumphant  Faith. 

Special  Rules  f  o  r 
the  Pastor. 

Freedom  and  Sla- 
very. 

Christ's  Priesthood 
Superior  to  the 
Mosaic. 

Works,  Faith  and 
Prayer. 

Duties  of  Christians 
to  One  Another. 

A  New  Heaven  and 
Earth. 

Redeeming  Love. 

Obedience  to  Christ. 

Personal  Piety. 

Against  Dangerous 
Doctrines. 

The  Church  in  Con- 
flict and  Glory. 


1  The  date  depends  upon  whether  there  was  a  second  imprisonment  of  Paul  at 
Rome.     If  there  was,  the  latter  date  is  the  correct  one. 

-Opinions  of  critical  scholars  are  now  divided  between  the  three,  with  the  ten- 
dency strong  against  the  Pauline  authorship  of  Hebrews. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  :  HOW  AND  WHEN  ONE  BOOK — THE 
OLD  TESTAMENT  A  GROWTH — EARLY  COLLECTIONS — GREEK 
SEPTUAGINT — MISHNA  AND  SYNOD  OF  JAMNIA — TESTI- 
MONY OF  JOSEPHUS — EZRA  AND  THE  GREAT  SYNAGOGUE — 
WHAT  NEW  TESTAMENT  WRITERS  SAY — OLD  TESTAMENT 
BOOKS  QUOTED  IN  THE  NEW — ORDER  OF  THE  BOOKS — 
CATALOGUES — OLD  TESTAMENT  AMONG  CHRISTIANS. 

i.  The  Old  Testament  a  Growth. — The  writings  of  the 
New  Testament  were  all  written  and  gathered  into  one 
collection  within  a  single  century.  The  writings  compris- 
ing the  Old  Testament  were  written  in  different  centuries 
stretching  over  a  period  of  at  least  one  thousand  years. 
They  were  the  outgrowth  of  great  eras  in  the  Hebrew 
national  life.  They  span  ten  centuries  from  Moses  and  the 
Exodus  to  the  Restoration  and  the  era  of  Ezra  and  Malachi. 

As  in  the  building  of  a  vast,  magnificent  palace,  so  the 
production  and  gathering  into  one  book  of  these  marvel- 
lous writings  of  the  Law,  the  Prophets  and  the  Psalms  in- 
volved a  gradual  process.  Precisely  how  and  when  all  the 
Old  Testament  books  were  separated  from  other  writings, 
and  were  accepted  among  the  Jews  themselves  as  of  divine 
authority,  is  still  veiled  in  much  obscurity.  The  collection 
appears  to  have  been  complete  and  clearly  defined  in  the 
period  of  the  persecution  by  Antiochus,  about  168  b.  c. 
For  in  that  period  " sacred  books"  were  sought  out  and 
(98) 


EARLY    COLLECTIONS.  99 

burnt,  and  the  possession  of  a  book  of  the  Covenant  ex- 
posed the  possessor  to  the  penalty  of  death. 

2.  Early  Collections. — Over  two  thousand  years  ago  the 
Hebrew  Sacred  Scriptures  were  recognized  as  comprising 
three  portions,  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  the  "  writings " 
(Hebrew,  K'thubhim).  The  third  part  was  often  referred 
to  as  the  Psalms,  the  Greek  title  being  Hagiographa — 
"  Holy  Writings."  These  divisions  and  the  designations 
of  them  were  certainly  known  two  generations  before  Ben 
Sirach  and  as  early  as  170  b.  cl  For  he  records  how 
his  grandfather  gave  himself  to  the  study  of  "the  Law," 
"the  Prophets  "and  "  the  other  books."  This  threefold 
division  is  also  clearly  recognized  by  numerous  references 
in  the  Old  Testament  as  "  the  law  of  Moses,  and  the  Pro- 
phets, and  the  Psalms."  Luke  24:44.  Compare  also 
Matt.  22  :  40 ;  Acts  28  :  23. 

The  three  portions  were  also  recognized  as  one  collec- 
tion, and  called  the  "Scriptures."  Mark  12:24;  Luke 
24:  27,  44,  45  ;  John  5  :  39  ;  2  Tim.  3  :  15.  The  internal 
evidence  from  the  books  themselves  proves  that  a  collection 
called  the  "  Law  "  or  "  Law  of  Moses,"  was  made  at  a  very 
early  period.  Ezra  read  to  the  people  "in  the  book  of 
the  law  of  God"  seven  days.  Nehemiah  8.  It  was  that 
collection  which  was  found  by  Hilkiah  the  priest  in  the 
reign  of  Josiah.  2  Chron.  34:  15.  The  book  of  the  law 
*  was  systematically  taught  to  the  nation  by  a  delegation  of 
teachers  appointed  under  the  royal  authority  of  Jehosha- 
phat.  2  Chron.  17:7-9.  Joshua  also  read  "all  the 
words"  "in  the  book  of  the  law"  of  Moses  after  the 
Hebrews  entered  Canaan.  Josh.  8:32-35.  This  shows 
that  a  collection  known  as  the  law  existed  from  the  time 

1  Buhl,  Canon  and  Text,  O.  T.,  p.  11. 


100  THE    GREEK    SEPTUAGINT. 

of  Moses  and  was  accepted  as  having  divine  authority. 
Precisely  when  the  other  portions  were  accepted  is  uncer- 
tain. The  approximate  dates  suggested,  as  the  result  of 
the  study  of  historical  data  handed  down  to  our  time,  will 
be  given  further  on. 

3.  The  Greek  Septuagint. — During  the  first  centuries  of 
the  Christian  era  and  before,  there  was  in  common  use  a 
Greek  version  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  known  as  the  Sep- 
tuagint ;  that  is  "  seventy,"  so  called  because  seventy  trans- 
lators were  supposed  to  have  made  the  version.  Along 
with  the  books  accepted  by  Palestinian  Jews  were  placed 
certain  other  writings  which  were  sometimes  read  or  quoted 
as  if  they  possessed  an  authority  similar  to  the  generally 
accepted  sacred  books  themselves.  Sharp  controversies 
between  the  Jews  and  their  opponents  caused  the  distinc- 
tion between  this  Greek  collection  and  the  strict  Hebrew 
Scriptures  to  be  defined,  and  those  held  to  be  of  divine 
authority  were  limited  to  the  books  now  comprising  the 
Hebrew  Old  Testament. 

The  origin  and  early  history  of  this  Greek  version,  as 
well  as  what  books  it  comprised,  are  very  imperfectly  known. 
The  version  appears  to  have  disregarded  the  threefold  divi- 
sion of  the  books  common  among  the  Jews,  although  that 
grouping  was  not  an  uncommon  one  among  Greek-speak- 
ing Jews.  Ben  Sirach  in  his  preface  to  the  Greek  version 
of  the  Apocryphal  book  of  Ecclesiasticus  refers  to  this 
triple  division. 

While  the  Alexandrian  collection  included  several  books 
now  of  the  Apocrypha,  yet  these  were  more  or  less  of  a 
religious  character.  The  Vatican  MS.  (b)  has  the  book  of 
Wisdom,  Ben  Sirach,  additions  to  Esther,  Daniel  and  Ezra, 
Judith,  Tobit,  Baruch,  and  the  letter  of  Jeremiah,  besides 


THE    MISHNA    AND    SYNOD    OF    JAMNIA.  101 

the  canonical  books.  The  Alexandrian  MS.  (a)  has  all 
these  and  four  books  of  Maccabees,  and  the  prayer  of 
Manasseh,  and  probably  had  the  Psalms  of  Solomon,  as  a 
list  of  contents  indicates.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  the 
Alexandrians  had  no  Canon  as  distinct  from  the  Palestinian 
Jews.1 

But  even  the  Alexandrians  would  not  include  among  the 
volumes  of  sacred  books  works  like  those  of  Philo.  This 
fact  has  been  urged  as  proof  of  an  independent  Alexan- 
drian Canon.  If  taken  in  connection  with  other  known 
facts,  however,  it  gives  no  support  to  such  a  view,  but  may 
rather  be  regarded  as  disproving  it.2 

The  most  that  can  be  claimed  from  the  existing  copies 
of  the  Septuagint  is  that  at  the  time  the  translation  was 
made  the  precise  extent  of  the  third  division  of  the  Jew- 
ish Scriptures  had  not  perhaps  been  finally  settled. 

4.  The  Mishna  and  Synod  of  Jam?iia. — The  controver- 
sies among  the  Jews  over  the  teachings  of  Jesus  and  his 
disciples  probably  gave  rise  to  a  fresh  discussion  respecting 
the  books  actually  recognized  as  of  divine  authority  by 
the  Hebrews.  These  questions  came  up  before  the  Jewish 
Synod  at  Jabne  (Jamnia  near  Jaffa),  about  90  a.  d.  This 
Jewish  Council  did  not  attempt  to  select  a  list  of  sacred 
books,  but  simply  to  declare  what  books  were  and  had 
been  universally  acknowledged  among  them  as  sacred. 
Their  decree  in  regard  to  the  Scriptures  included  all  the 
books  now  in  the  Hebrew  Canon  and  no  others. 

The  fact  that   a  few  among  the  Zealots,  Sadducees  and 

1  "  We  cannot,  therefore,  speak  of  a  Canon  of  the  Alexandrines  in 
the  strict  sense  of  the  word."  Buhl,  Canon  of  O.  T.f  p.  47.  "  The 
Alexandrians  knew  no  fixed  Canon."  Wildeboer,  Origin  of  the 
Canon,  p.  33.     See  also  Green,  Introduction  and  Canon,  p.  127  ff 

!  See  Green,  Introduction  and  Canon,  pp.  125-130. 


102  TESTIMONY    OF    JOSEPHUS. 

Samaritans  dissented  from  the  views  of  the  majority  shows 
that  the  historical  testimony  was  carefully  sifted,  and  the 
facts  ascertained  and  declared  by  the  great  assembly.  The 
smaller  heretical  sects  had  doctrinal  and  not  historical 
reasons  for  their  dissent.  Thus  the  Synod  considered  the 
historical  facts  in  respect  to  the  books  that  had  and  had 
not  been  accepted  among  them  as  divine.  This  declara- 
tion was  further  confirmed  later  by  the  Mishna,  both  re- 
stricting the  Hebrew  Canonical  books  to  the  "  24  writ- 
ings," including  Ecclesiastes  and  the  Song  of  Solomon. 
It  is  well  known  that  the  Hebrews  reckoned  our  twelve 
Minor  Prophets  as  one  book,  our  two  books  of  Samuel  as 
one,  also  our  two  books  of  Kings  one,  and  our  two  of 
Chronicles,  and  that  they  joined  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  in 
one,  thus  reducing  our  thirty-nine  to  twenty-four  books. 
The  origin  of  the  division  of  Samuel,  Kings,  Chronicles 
and  Ezra,  each  into  two  books,  is  in  obscurity.  It  appears 
in  the  Bomberg  Bible,  15  21.  And  Jerome  alludes  to  each 
of  them  as  "double"  books,  but  it  is  not  clear  whether 
he  means  the  Hebrew  or  the  Greek  or  the  Latin  versions. 

The  decree  of  Jamnia  is  of  special  interest  because  it  in- 
dicates the  collection  which  our  Lord  and  the  New  Testa- 
ment writers  cite  from  or  refer  to  as  the  Scriptures. 

5.  Testimony  of  Josephns. — The  early  Christians,  espec- 
ially those  who  were  formerly  Jews,  in  quoting  the  Old 
Testament  books  in  arguments  with  Jews,  would  require  to 
know  what  books  the  Hebrews  accepted  as  sacred.  Their 
hopes  concerning  the  Messiah,  the  doctrines  of  their  reli- 
gion, and  the  truth  of  the  things  taught  by  Jesus,  were  all 
to  be  proved  by  these  Scriptures.  What  books,  then,  were 
comprised  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures?  The  Jewish  writer 
Josephus,  about  38-110  a.  d.,  recognizes  a  definite  and  dis- 


TESTIMONY    OF    JOSEPH  US.  103 

tinct  body  of  books  as  divine.  From  his  writings  and 
other  statements,  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  current  at  that 
period  can  be  accurately  determined.     Josephus  says : 

"We  have  not  tens  of  thousands  of  books,  discordant 
and  conflicting,  but  only  twenty-two,  containing  the 
record  of  all  time,  which  have  been  justly  believed 
divine.  And  of  these  five  are  the  books  of  Moses. 
.  .  .  The  prophets  who  succeeded  Moses  wrote  what 
was  done  in  thirteen  books  The  remaining  four  books, 
embrace  hymns  to  God  and  counsel  for  men  for  the  con- 
duct of  life.  From  Artaxerxes  until  our  time  every- 
thing has  been  recorded,  but  has  not  been  deemed  worthy 
of  like  credit  with  what  preceded,  because  the  exact 
succession  of  the  prophets  ceased.  But  what  faith  we 
have  placed  in  our  own  writings  is  evident  by  our  conduct, 
for  though  so  long  a  time  has  now  passed,  no  one  has 
dared  either  to  add  anything  to  them,  or  to  take  anything 
from  them,  or  to  alter  anything  in  them.  But  it  is  instinc- 
tive in  all  Jews  at  once  from  their  very  birth  to  regard 
them  as  commands  of  God,  and  to  abide  by  them,  and,  if 
need  be,  willingly  to  die  for  them."    Contra  Apion.,  i  :  8. 

Josephus  here  reckons  the  number  of  the  books,  twenty- 
two  in  accord  with  some  of  the  Jews  of  his  time.  Com- 
monly they  were  counted  twenty-four  as  already  stated. 
By  regarding  Ruth  as  an  appendix  to  Judges,  and  Lamen- 
tations as  part  of  Jeremiah,  the  whole  number  was  made 
twenty-two  (equal  to  the  number  of  letters  in  the  Hebrew 
alphabet),  a  method  followed  by  Josephus.  Efforts  to  dis- 
credit this  testimony,  on  the  ground  that  Josephus  was  stat- 
ing his  personal  opinion,  and  not  the  current  belief  of  his 
people,  have  signally  failed,  for  his  testimony  is  strongly 
sustained  by  other  historical  evidences.1 

1  See  Green,  Introduction  and  Canon,  p.  38  ff.  Ryle,  Canon,  p. 
160  ff. 


104        EZRA  AND  THE  GREAT  SYNAGOGUE. 

The  decree  of  Jamnia,  the  writings  of  Philo,  and  Jewish 
literature  for  two  centuries  next  to  the  Christian  era  com- 
bine to  confirm  the  general  accuracy  of  Josephus'  state- 
ment. 

The  Jewish  dissent  from  the  strict  Hebrew  Canon  was 
small  and  partial  and  can  easily  be  accounted  for.  The 
disturbed  conditions  of  Hebrew  life  after  the  restoration, 
the  persecutions,  wars  and  heresies  that  sprang  up  partly 
from  mingling  with  Gentiles,  fully  account  for  these  com- 
paratively few  dissenting  views. 

The  Samaritans  accepted  the  five  books  of  Moses  only, 
rejecting  the  former  and  later  prophets  and  the  other  books 
of  the  Hebrew  Canon.  But  they  held  Gerizim  to  be  the 
central  place  of  worship,  and  hence  rejected  the  books 
which  pointed  to  Jerusalem  as  that  place,  as  may  be  in- 
ferred from  the  talk  between  Christ  and  the  woman  of 
Samaria.  John  4.  The  Sadducees  also  held  heretical 
views  in  regard  to  the  resurrection  and  the  future  state, 
and  hence  loose  views  in  respect  to  the  Hebrew  Canon. 
The  Essenes,  according  to  Josephus  (Wars,  2:8,  7),  also 
accepted  some  special  writings  as  sacred,  but  their  charac- 
ter is  unknown. 

The  great  body  of  the  Hebrew  people  never  questioned 
the  divine  authority  of  their  sacred  books,  nor  did  they 
refer  to  apocryphal  writings  as  having  such  authority. 
Even  Philo  does  not  use  apocryphal  writings  as  he  does 
those  of  the  Hebrew  canon.  Josephus  expressly  disclaims 
all  divine  authority  for  the  apocryphal  books.  (See  Con- 
tra Apion,  1 : 8.) 

6.  Ezra  and  the  Great  Synagogue. — The  writer  of  Mac- 
cabees reports  that  Nehemiah  "  founded  a  library  and 
gathered  together  the  acts  of  the  kings  and  prophets,  and 


EZRA    AND    THE    GREAT    SYNAGOGUE.  105 

the  writings  of  David  and  the  Epistles  of  the  Kings  con- 
cerning the  holy  gifts."  2  Mace.  2  :  13.  This  reads  like 
a  description  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures  comprising  the 
Prophets  and  the  Psalms,  with  the  other  sacred  writings 
usually  classed  with  the  Psalms  in  later  times.  The  same 
writer  also  states  that  after  Antiochus  Epiphanes  had  tried 
to  destroy  the  existing  copies  of  the  Jewish  sacred  books 
Judas  Maccabaeus  again  "gathered  together  all  those 
things  that  were  lost  by  reason  of  the  war  we  had,  and 
they  remain  with  us."   2  Mace.  2  :  14. 

Some  hold  that  this  describes  the  origin  and  closing  of 
the  third  division  of  the  Old  Testament  called  the  Hagio- 
grapha,  "  Holy  Writings."  But  the  context  seems  rather 
to  imply,  not  the  making  of  a  collection,  but  rather  the 
restoration  of  one  before  known  and  lost  or  scattered 
through  the  persecution  of  Antiochus.  There  is  indeed 
an  oral  tradition  reduced  to  writing  at  a  later  period  that 
the  collection  of  Old  Testament  books  was  made  under 
divine  appointment  by  Ezra  or  by  120  men  of  the  so-called 
Great  Synagogue.  This  tradition,  though  widely  prevalent 
among  the  Jews  for  centuries,  has  no  satisfactory  historical 
basis.  Whether  the  collection  was  or  was  not  so  made,  it 
is  certain  that  there  was  a  complete  collection  before  the 
Christian  era,  and  that  there  was  a  book  of  the  law,  the  germ 
of  the  collection  of  divine  authority,  which  was  known  and 
accepted  eight  or  ten  centuries  earlier.1 

The  evidence  on  the  whole  points  strongly  to  the  third 
century  b.  c.  as  the  date  when  the  entire  collection  of 
Hebrew  sacred  Scriptures  was  completed  and  closed,  al- 
though the  certainty  of  this  date  is  still  an  open  question. 

^uhl,  Canon  O.  T.,  p.  10  ff.  See  2  Chr.  34:15;  Josh.  1:8; 
8:34;   Deut.  30:  10;  31  :26. 


106  WHAT       NEW    TESTAMENT    WRITERS    SAY. 

7.  What  New  Testament  Writers  Say. — It  is  generally 
conceded  that  the  New  Testament  writers  recognized 
groups  of  sacred  books,  and  quoted  from  them  and  from  a 
collection  also,  which  they  regarded  of  divine  authority. 
They  represent  Christ  also  as  referring  to  them  and  quoting 
from  them  in  attestation  of  his  mission.  The  Hebrew 
Scriptures  are  frequently  so  cited  under  the  titles  "The 
Law,"  "The  Law  of  Moses,"  or  simply  "Moses,"  and 
as  "The  Prophets,"  "The  Psalms,"  or  "The  Writings;" 
that  is,  "The  Scriptures."  They  do  not  so  quote  the 
apocryphal  books. 

They  are  alluded  to  as  a  unit,  one  divine  record  ;  "  the 
Scriptures"  in  the  broader  sense.1  Christ  quoted  the 
Jewish  "Scriptures"  as  sacred  books  of  divine  authority. 
By  "Scriptures"  he  did  not  refer  simply  to  the  K'tubhim 
or  Hagiographa,  that  is,  the  so-called  third  group ;  for 
the  passages  thus  cited  were  frequently  from  the  prophets, 
which  belonged  to  the  so-called  second  group.  For 
example,  "not  knowing  the  Scriptures,"  Matt.  22:29, 
31,  evidently  has  reference  to  Ex.  3:6;  and  "  how  then 
shall  the  Scriptures  be  fulfilled?"  refers  to  Isa.  53:  10; 
and  a  similar  phrase  in  Mark  15  :  28  is  followed  by  a  cita- 
tion from  Isa.  53  :  12. 

8.  Old    Testament    Books    Quoted    in    the    New. — Not 

1  For  notice  of  the  Old  Testament  books  in  the  commonly-accepted 
groups  see  Matt.  5:17;  7:12;  12:5;  22:40;  Mark  1:2;  John 
1:45;  7:19;  8:5;  15:25;  Luke  10:26;  24:44.  For  reference 
to  them  as  one  work  see  Matt.  21  :  42  ;  22  :  29  ;  26  :  54  ;  Mark  12  :  24; 
14  :  49  ;  Luke  24  :  27,  32,  45  ;  John  5  :  39  ;  Acts  1 7  :  2,  1 1  ;  18  :  24  ; 
Rom.  1:2;  15:4;  16:26;  1  Cor.  15:3;  2  Tim.  3:15;  2  Pet. 
3:16.  Those  who  assert  that  when  Jesus  referred  to  the  group  called 
the  Psalms  (which  included  all  the  books  not  in  the  groups  of  the 
law  and  of  the  prophets)  he  referred  always  to  the  single  book  of 
Psalms  (which  he  did  sometimes  do),  and  never  to  the  group  so  called, 
are  simply  "  begging  the  question"  at  issue. 


HEBREW  ORDER  OF  BOOKS.  1()7 

less  than  thirty  of  the  thirty-nine  Old  Testament  books 
are  quoted  in  the  New  Testament.  Our  Lord  himself 
quotes  from  twenty  of  them.  There  are  about  280  direct 
quotations  (including  those  in  Revelation)  of  passages  and 
clauses,  and  about  220  references  to  incidents  and  indirect 
quotations  in  the  New  Testament  (exclusive  of  Revela- 
tion)1 from  the  Old  Testament.  The  book  of  Revelation 
is  almost  a  mosaic  of  thoughts,  figures  and  expressions 
from  the  prophetic  books  of  the  Old  Testament.2 

Again,  the  numerous  citations  in  the  Gospels  and  Epistles 
clearly  indicate  divisions  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  recog- 
nized and  well  known  in  that  era,  while  at  the  same  time 
all  these  groups  were  known  as  one  work,  called,  by  way 
of  eminence,  "  the  Scriptures." 

9.  Hebrew  Order  of  Books. — The  order  of  the  Old 
Testament  books  in  the  Hebrew  Bible  is  not  the  same  as  in 
our  common  English  Bibles.  In  the  face  of  the  rigid  rules 
for  making  copies  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  the  varia- 
tions found  in  Hebrew  manuscripts  and  in  Hebrew 
printed  Bibles  number  about  thirty  thousand  (some  esti- 
mate two  hundred  thousand),  but  they  are  mostly  quite 
unimportant.  The  Old  Testament  we  have  now  is  sub- 
stantially that  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  and  the  "  received 
text ' '  of  our  Lord's  day,  except  as  to  the  order  of  the  books. 

1  Some  older  writers  roughly  counted  265  direct  quotations  and  350 
allusions  in  the  New  Testament  from  the  Old.  The  tables  in  Bagster's 
"  Helps  to  Bible  Study  "  note  about  850  such  direct  and  indirect 
quotations  and  allusions.  The  tables  in  Oxford  "  Helps  to  the  Study 
of  the  Bible  "  give  a  list  of  exact  quotations  and  a  somewhat  less  com- 
plete list  of  indirect  quotations  and  allusions. 

2  From  a  careful  examination  of  the  book  of  Revelation,  it  appears 
that  in  fifteen  passages  the  book  of  Revelation  uses  the  exact  language 
and  expressions  of  some  Old  Testament  hooks,  besides  129  distinct 
allusions  to  the  Old  Testament,  and  upwards  of  100  less  distinct 
references. 


108  k'tubhim  or  hagiographa. 

The  Hebrew  order  varied,  but  the  following  was  a  com- 
mon one:  I.  Pentateuch. — Genesis,  Exodus,  Leviticus, 
Numbers,  Deuteronomy. 

II.  Former  Prophets. — Joshua,  Judges,  i  and  2  Samuel, 

1  and  2  Kings. 

III.  Later  Prophets. — {a)  Greater:  Isaiah,  Jeremiah, 
Ezekiel.  {b)  Lesser :  Hosea,  Joel,  Amos,  Obadiah,  Jonah, 
Micah,  Nahum,  Habakkuk,  Zephaniah,  Haggai,  Zechariah, 
Malachi. 

IV.  K'tubhim  or  Hagiographa. — {a)  Psalms,  Proverbs, 
Job.  (6)  Five  Rolls :  Song  of  Songs,  Ruth,  Lamentations, 
Ecclesiastes,  Esther.      (V)   Daniel,  Ezra,  Nehemiah,  1   and 

2  Chronicles.1  But  the  Massoretes  had  this  order:  Chroni- 
cles, Psalms,  Job,  Proverbs,  Ruth,  Song  of  Solomon, 
Ecclesiastes,  Lamentations,  Esther,  Daniel,  Ezra,  Nehemiah. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  Hebrew  Old  Testament 
usually  closed  with  the  Chronicles,  regarded  as  one  book. 
This  will  throw  light  on  the  reference  to  "Abel  and  Zacha- 
riah  "  as  the  first  and  last-mentioned  martyr  (Matt.  23  :  35). 
An  earlier  Hebrew  arrangement,  it  is  held,  existed,  by 
which  Ruth  was  a  part  of  or  appendix  to  Judges,  and 
Lamentations  to  Jeremiah.  The  books  of  Samuel  were 
one,  as  also  the  two  books  of  Kings,  and  the  twelve  minor 
prophets  one,  thus  making  twenty-four  books  in  the  Hebrew 
Bible.  The  Palestinian  Jews,  according  to  Melito  (200 
a.  d.),  had  this  order:  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Minor  Prophets, 
Daniel,  Ezekiel.  The  Syriac  and  Armenian  Versions  put 
the  Minor  Prophets  between  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  while 
the  Septuagint  puts  them  before  the  Major  Prophets. 

1  Ezra  I  :  1-3  is  the  verbal  duplicate  of  2  Chron.  36:  22,  23,  com- 
pleting the  record  with  which  2  Chron.  ends,  which  looks  as  if  Ezra 
and  probably  Nehemiah  were  originally  a  part  of  Chronicles,  but  it  is 
more  likely  that  the  chronicler  copied  them. 


CATALOGUES    OF    O.    T.    BOOKS.  109 

The  Greek  order  of  the  twelve  minor  prophets  differs 
from  the  Hebrew,  and  runs  :  Hosea,  Amos,  Micah,  Joel, 
Obadiah,  Nahum,  Habakkuk,  Zephaniah,  Haggai,  Zecha- 
riah,  Malachi.  The  order  in  the  Hagiographa  was  :  Ruth, 
Psalms,  Job,  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  Song  of  Solomon, 
Lamentations,  Daniel,  Esther,  Ezra,  Chronicles. 

10.  Catalogues  of  O.  T.  Books. — The  oldest  extant  cata- 
logue of  O.  T.  books  is  by  Melito,  Bishop  of  Sardis,  and 
dates  from  the  last  half  of  the  second  century.  It  con- 
tains all  the  books  in  the  Hebrew  Old  Testament  except 
Esther,  and  no  others.1 

Various  reasons  for  the  omission  of  Esther  in  his  list 
have  been  suggested,  but  none  of  them  is  wholly  satisfac- 
tory. Justin  Martyr,  151-164  a.  d.,  does  not  give  a 
catalogue,  but  cites  from  the  Old  Testament  books,  not 
from  the  apocryphal  books.  Origen  (d.  254  a.  d.) 
reckons  the  Old  Testament  books  at  twenty-two,  and  gives 
the  names  of  all  in  the  Hebrew,  and  in  our  Old  Testament, 
and  then  adds:  ''Apart  from  these  are  books  of  Macca- 
bees." By  which  he  means  that  Maccabees  did  not  belong 
to  the  accepted  books.2  Tertullian  also  numbers  the  books 
of  the  Old  Testament  as  twenty-four,  in  which  he  follows 
the  common  Hebrew  count  and  that  of  the  Talmud,  which 
is  identical  with  the  Hebrew  Canon  of  Josephus,  since  he 
counts  Lamentations  and  Ruth  as  separate  books.  Five 
Greek  fathers — Athanasius,  Cyril,  Epiphanius,  Amphiloch- 
ius  and  Gregory  Nazianzen — give  catalogues,  and  Basil  the 
Great,  and  Chrysostom  also  imply  that  the  Hebrew  Canon 
only  was  accepted.  Basil  says  the  books  are  twenty-two 
(as  reckoned  by  Josephus),  and  Chrysostom  says:  "All  the 

1  Eusebius,  Eccl.  Hist.,  4.  26. 
-  Eusebius,  Eccle.  Hist.,  6.  25. 


110  CATALOGUES    OF    0.    T.    BOOKS. 

books  of  the  Old  Testament  were  originally  written  in 
Hebrew,  as  all  among  us  confess."  1 

In  the  Latin  church,  Hilary,  Ruffin  and  Jerome  give 
catalogues  of  the  Old  Testament  which  agree  in  substance 
with  the  Hebrew  canon.  So  for  four  centuries,  Christians 
of  the  Eastern,  Western,  Greek  and  Latin  churches  agree 
in  accepting  the  books  and  those  alone  in  our  Old  Testa- 
ment. Augustine,  however,  in  his  catalogue  reckons  forty- 
four  Old  Testament  books.  He  includes  apocryphal 
books.  But  it  is  claimed  that  he  ranked  the  books  of  the 
strict  Hebrew  canon  above  the  books  which  he  associated 
with  them.  He  says:  "The  Jews  do  not  hold  this  Scrip- 
ture which  is  called  Maccabees  as  they  do  the  Law  and  the 
Prophets,  to  which  the  Lord  bears  testimony  as  to  his  wit- 
nesses."2 Cardinal  Ximenes,  in  a  preface  to  his  Complu- 
tensian  Polyglot  Bible,  and  Cardinal  Cajetan,  in  his  Com- 
mentary on  Hebrews,  declare  that  the  books  in  Hebrew 
are  alone  canonical.  The  latter  adds  :  "We  have  chosen 
the  rule  of  Jerome  that  we  may  not  err  in  distinguishing 
the  canonical  books."  And  these  three  therefore  bear 
virtual  testimony  to  the  acceptance  of  the  Hebrew  canon 
alone,  which  is  identical  with  our  thirty-nine  Old  Testa- 
ment books. 

The  firm  appeal  of  the  Reformers  to  Holy  Scriptures 
probably  influenced  the  Council  of  Trent,  1546,  to  extend 
the  list  of  accepted  books  and  include  several  apocryphal 
writings  not  found  in  the  Hebrew  tongue.  The  Council 
also  sanctioned  all  traditions  of  the  church,  and  declared 
that  they  must  likewise  be  received  upon  pain  of  anathema. 
This  led  to  the  acceptance  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 

1  Homily  4,  on  Genesis.  2  De  Civitate  Dei.,  18  :26. 


THE    OLD    TESTAMENT    AMONG    CHRISTIANS.  Ill 

of  the  apocrypha  as  of  equal  authority  with  the  Hebrew 
Old  Testament  books. 

ii.  The  Old  Testament  Among  Christians. — The  early 
Christians  agree  in  excluding  the  apocrypha  from  the 
"Scriptures."  This  was  the  practice  of  the  Syrians,  the 
exceptions  among  them  being  of  persons  acting  on  their 
personal  responsibility,  and  not  representing  their  churches. 

a.  The  Greek  Church. — The  Alexandrian  and  other 
African  Greek-speaking  Christians  often  referred  to  writ- 
ings called  apocryphal,  but  to  what  extent  and  precisely 
how  far  these  were  believed  to  have  authority  is  now  un- 
known. Some  say  that  the  Alexandrian  Christians  made 
no  distinction  between  these  books  and  those  of  the  true 
Hebrew  canon.  Others  maintain  that  the  apocryphal  books 
were  used  and  referred  to  for  instruction  only,  but  were 
not  ranked  in  authority  with  the  Hebrew  books.  Whether 
this  is  true  or  not,  it  is  clear  that  a  large  portion  of  the 
Greek  Christians  constantly  asserted  that  the  apocryphal 
books  had  not  received  the  sanction  among  them  which 
the  Hebrew  books  had  received.  Hence  the  term  apoc- 
ryphal, "hidden;"  in  contrast  with  the  "open"  or  "mani- 
fest" books  that  were  in  the  clear  daylight  of  universal 
ecclesiastical  acceptance. 

The  modern  Greek  Church  is  not  wholly  consistent  nor 
uniform  in  practice.  The  Synod  of  Constantinople,  1638, 
of  Jassy,  1642,  of  Jerusalem,  1672,  declined  to  mark  off 
the  canonical  from  the  apocryphal  books  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, though  Cyril  and  others  of  the  Greek  fathers  had 
done  so.  But  the  Larger  Catechism  of  the  Russian  Greek 
Church,  Moscow,  1839,  excludes  the  apocrypha,  because 
"they  do  not  exist  in  Hebrew."  The  earlier  Confession 
by  Lucar,  Patriarch   of  Constantinople,    1631,  also  sane- 


112  THE   LATIN    CHURCH. 

tions  the  Hebrew  canon,  and  so  does  the  Confession  of 
the  Metropolitan  of  Moscow,  1836.  But  the  Confession 
of  the  Patriarch  of  Jerusalem,  1672,  prepared,  it  is  alleged, 
under  Romish  influence,  receives  the  apocrypha. 

b.  The  Latin  Church. — Previous  to  the  Reformation  the 
Latin  Church,  generally  following  Jerome,  Gregory  the 
Great,  604,  Ximenes,  Cajetan,  and  others  of  its  learned 
men,  accepted  the  Hebrew  canon.  But  there  were  several 
exceptions,  as  Augustine,  393-397,  and  others,  who  were 
undecided,  like  Cassiodorus,  556  a.  d.,  Isidore,  636  a.  d. 
The  Reformers  within  the  Latin  Church  in  the  sixteenth 
century  appealed  to  Scripture  as  supreme  authority  in  reli- 
gion, using  the  Hebrew  Old  Testament  books  only.  But 
the  Council  of  Trent  (4th  Session),  1546,  declared  con- 
cerning the  Scriptures  of  authority  : 

"[The  Synod],  following  the  examples  of  the  orthodox 
Fathers,  receives  and  venerates  with  an  equal  affection  of 
piety  and  reverence  all  the  books  both  of  the  Old  and  of 
the  New  Testaments,  seeing  that  one  God  is  the  author  of 
both,  as  also  the  unwritten  traditions,  as  well  those  apper- 
taining to  faith  as  to  morals,  as  having  been  dictated  either 
by  Christ's  own  word  of  mouth  or  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
preserved  in  the  Catholic  Church  by  a  continuous  suc- 
cession." x 

The  books  named  in  the  decree  include  the  apocryphal 
Old  Testament  books,  and  placed  unwritten  traditions  of 
the  church  upon  an  equal  footing  with  Holy  Scriptures  as 
approved  of  Christ  or  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Any  appeal  to 
Holy  Scripture  as  expressing  the  supreme  will  of  God  was 
thereafter  useless  in  the  Latin  Church. 

Canons  and  Dogmatic  Decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  Eng. 
Trans.,  by  Rev.  J.  Waterworth,  R.  C,  London,  1848. 


THE   PROTESTANT   CHURCH.  113 

The  Old  Catholic  Union,  1874,  declares  "  that  the  apoc- 
ryphal or  deutero-canonical  books  of  the  Old  Testament 
are  not  of  the  same  canonicity  as  the  books  contained  in 
the  Hebrew  canon."  They  also  say  that  no  translation 
can  have  superior  authority  to  the  original  text. 

c.  The  Protestant  Churches. — The  churches  of  the  Refor- 
mation are  generally  agreed  in  accepting  the  books  of  the 
Hebrew  Old  Testament,  and  in  rejecting  other  books.  Yet 
some  have  approved  the  Apocrypha  for  reading,  but  not 
for  proving  any  doctrines  of  religion.  Luther  translated 
the  non-canonical  books,  and  used  great  freedom  in  criti- 
cising books  of  the  Old  Testament.  He  thought  the  book 
of  Esther,  for  example,  should  have  been  excluded,  and 
the  first  book  of  Maccabees  included  in  the  canon.  He 
had  a  low  opinion  also  of  Ecclesiastes  and  the  Chronicles. 
He  did  not  base  his  views  on  historical  grounds,  but  upon 
the  contents  and  style  of  the  books  themselves.  The  other 
Lutheran  Reformers,  however,  as  Carlstadt  followed  Jerome 
in  accepting  the  Hebrew  books  only,  and  in  this  practice 
Luther  acquiesced. 

Thus  the  Lutheran  Church,  following  Luther,  usually 
places  the  Apocrypha  after  the  Hebrew  canonical  books. 
Luther  in  his  translation  said  of  the  Apocrypha:  " These 
are  books  not  to  be  held  in  equal  esteem  with  those  of  Holy 
Scripture,  but  yet  good  and  useful  reading."  Bible  socie- 
ties in  Germany  continue  to  print  this  explanation  on  the 
title-page  to  the  Apocrypha,  which  comprises  fourteen 
books.  The  table  of  contents  of  Old  Testament  books  in 
German  Bibles  usually  count  only  thirty-eight  books,  regard- 
ing Lamentations  as  a  part  of  Jeremiah,  although  in  the 
text  they  give  Lamentations  a  separate  title,  like  that  pre- 
fixed to  other  books. 


114  THE    PROTESTANT    CHURCH. 

The  Church  of  England  allows  the  reading  of  the  apoc- 
ryphal books  "  for  example  of  life  and  instruction  of 
manners  ;  but  yet  doth  it  not  apply  to  them  to  establish  any 
doctrine."  The  Belgic  Confession  holds  a  similar  position. 
The  Westminster  Confession  says:  "The  books  com- 
monly called  Apocrypha,  not  being  of  divine  inspiration, 
are  no  part  of  the  canon  of  the  Scripture  ;  and  therefore  are 
of  no  authority  in  the  Church  of  God,  nor  to  be  any  other- 
wise approved,  or  made  use  of,  than  other  human  writings." 
Chap,  i,  3.  This  view  is  generally  approved  by  non-litur- 
gical churches  holding  to  the  evangelical  system  of  doc- 
trine. 

These  two  views  brought  on  the  famous  controversy  over 
the  Apocrypha  in  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society, 
1811-1827.  That  society  had  circulated  and  aided  in 
circulating  Bibles  containing  the  Apocrypha,  through  aux- 
iliaries on  the  continent  of  Europe,  especially  in  editions 
of  Roman  Catholic  versions.  This  was  vigorously  op- 
posed by  many  of  its  contributors  for  several  years.  Com- 
promises were  made,  but  proved  unsatisfactory,  and  the 
final  decision  was  that  no  aid  should  be  given  to  the  circu- 
lation of  any  Bibles  which  had  the  Apocrypha  bound  in 
them.  This  is  "the  distinguishing  excellence  of  the  Pro- 
testant church  over  against  the  Romish  and  the  Greek 
churches,  that  it  has  put  before  its  members  the  canonical 
books  pure  and  without  any  admixture."1  It  was  this 
strict  Hebrew  list  of  Old  Testament  books  which  com- 
prised the  Scriptures,  the  Bible  of  our  Lord  and  of  his 
apostles,  which  they  sanctioned  by  their  use,  and  which 
has  come  down  to  us  with  the  New  Testament  as  contain- 
ing the  revealed  will  of  God. 

1  Buhl,  Canon  and  Text  of  O.  T.,  p.  73. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  BOOKS  OF  THE    LAW  :    PENTATEUCH,  DIVISIONS,   AUTHOR- 
SHIP AND  COMPOSITION. 

The  Pentateuch,  as  the  first  five  books  of  the  Bible  are 
often  called,  were  counted  the  "  five-fifths  of  the  Law"  by 
the  Hebrews,  being  one  complex  work,  and  in  the  early 
times  was  written  in  one  Hebrew  roll,  or  book.  In  the 
Greek  translation  it  was  arranged  in  five  books,  as  now  in 
our  English  Bibles. 

i.  Name. — These  five  books  are  often  called  "  The  Pen- 
tateuch," from  the  Greek  6  izevrdrevxog  (ho  pentatenchos), 
meaning  "  the  five-volnmed"  book.  The  Hebrews  call  it 
Torah,  "Law,"  and,  more  fully,  "The  Law  of  Moses." 
The  unity  of  this  entire  portion  of  the  Scriptures  is 
founded  upon  history  and  the  close  continuity  of  the  con- 
tents of  the  books.  For  example,  in  Hebrew  manuscripts, 
Genesis  is  reckoned  not  as  one  of  five  books,  but  as  one  part 
of  one  book.  A  Hebrew  conjunctive  word  connects  Exo- 
dus with  Genesis,  as  it  does  each  of  the  five  books  except 
Deuteronomy. 

2.  Division. — The  division  into  five  books  is  ascribed 
by  some  to  the  Alexandrian  translators  (285  B.C.),  and  by 
others  to  the  Maccabaean  period,  or  possibly  to  the  era  of 
Ezra.  The  one  roll,  however,  continued  to  be  referred  to 
as  "  The  Law  "  even  to  the  time  of  Christ ;  for  under  this 
title  he  quoted  several  of  the  first  five  books.1  The  title  of 

1  Matt.  12  ;  5,  *\  g.,  refers  to  Numbers ;  Luke  10 :  26,  27  to  Deuter- 
onomy and  Leviticus ;  Luke  2  :  22,  23  to  Exodus  and  Leviticus,  etc.,  but 
under  the  one  designation,  The  Law. 

(115) 


116  THE   BOOKS   OF    THE    LAW. 

each  of  the  five  separate  books  in  our  English  version  is 
derived  through  the  Latin  from  the  Alexandrian  Greek 
version.  These  titles  indicate  the  topic  or  contents  of  the 
respective  books.  Genesis  tells  of  the  birth  or  creation  of 
the  world ;  Exodus,  of  the  exodus  or  departure  of  the  He- 
brews from  Egypt ;  Leviticus,  of  the  law  or  rules  of  worship; 
Numbers,  of  the  census  of  the  people  in  the  wilderness; 
and  Deuteronomy — meaning  "  the  second  law  " — is  a  sum- 
mary or  re-statement  of  the  law.  The  Hebrew  title  for 
each  of  these  books  (when  they  note  any  division)  was  the 
first  words  with  which  each  book  began.  The  writers  often 
referred  to  the  roll  as  "Moses  "or  "The  Law,"  and 
pointed  out  the  place  by  the  first  word  or  words  of  the 
section,  as  "the  bush,"  Luke  20:  57,  which  is  the  phrase 
there  used  to  refer  to  the  section  in  Ex.  3  :  6.  This  ap- 
pears clearly  in  the  Revised  Version.     Sec.  V.  §  19. 

The  Talmud  and  Hebrew  Bibles  divided  the  "Law  "  into 
54  sections  called  Pershyoth.  These  were  subdivided  into 
smaller  sections  of  two  kinds;  that  is,  298  "  open  "  and  379 
"closed"  sections.1  These  were  marked  P.  and  S.  Possibly 
this  is  the  origin  of  the  "  \  "  in  modern  Bibles.  One  of 
these  longer  sections  was  to  be  read  each  Sabbath  of  the  year. 
Broadly,  then,  Genesis  may  be  called  the  book  of  beginnings; 
Exodus,  the  book  of  deliverance ;  Leviticus,  the  priestly 
book ;  Numbers,  the  book  of  marches  and  of  wars ;  Deuter- 
onomy, the  statute  or  code  book  of  the  Hebrew  people. 

3.  Authorship. — The  uniform  historic  testimony  of  early 
Christian,  of  Hebrew  and  of  heathen  writers  is  that  Moses 
was  the  author  of  the  body  of  the  Pentateuch  or  first 
five  books  of  the  Bible.  This  view  has  been  held,  practi- 
cally without  question,  until  comparatively  recent  times. 

1  Buhl  supposes  they  originated  in  the  14th  century. 


THE    BOOKS    OF    THE    LAW:  117 

The  Talmud  says,  "  Moses  wrote  his  book,  the  Pentateuch, 
with  the  exception  of  eight  verses,  the  last  eight  verses, 
which  were  written  by  Joshua."  Philo  and  Josephus  held 
that  these  books  were  written  by  Moses.  "Newer  crit- 
icism" has  reopened  the  question.  It  concedes  that  He- 
brew testimony  and  tradition  say  Moses  was  the  author ; 
but  is  tradition  right?  or  was  the  "Law"  compiled  by 
Samuel,  Solomon,  Josiah,  Ezra,  or  by  some  unknown  "  re- 
dactor "  of  a  later  period  ? x  These  theories  have  been 
varied,  progressing  from  one  hypothesis  to  another,  or  dis- 
agreeing among  themselves  as  to  the  authorship  and  com- 
position of  the  books. 

Astruc  (1760)  held  that  Genesis  was  composed  of  two 
different  documents  by  two  writers.  Then  this  "docu- 
mentary" character  was  declared  to  run  through  the  three 
books  following  Genesis ;  the  documents  being  loosely  put 
together.  Then  came  a  "fragmentary"  theory,  which 
pushed  aside  the  documentary  one.  It  was  claimed  that 
the  "  Elohistic  "  portion  was  the  possible  basis,  but  that 
there  was  a  multitude  of  other  fragments.  This  was  again 
changed  to  the  view  that  the  three  or  more  so-called  orig- 
inal "documents"  were  themselves  composite  works,  and 
were  wrought  into  one  composite  work  by  some  unknown 
"redactor,"  and  probably  two  or  three  successive  "  redac- 
tors." No  sooner  are  the  difficulties  of  the  position  on 
one  theory  shown  than  objectors  shift  to  another  theory.2 


1  Ben  Ezra,  of  the  twefth  century,  feebly  raised  this  inquiry.  It  was 
revived  by  Carlstadt,  Spinoza,  Astruc,  Eichhorn  and  Hupfeld.  These 
have  been  followed  by  Bleek,  Graf,  Wellhausen,  Robertson  Smith  and 
others  of  the  more  or  less  destructive  and  radical  schools  of  critics. 
It  is  not  unfair  to  charge  that  the  tendency  of  this  criticism  is  to  deny 
or  minify  the  divine  element,  the  supernatural,  in  the  Scriptures. 

2  In  general  it  may  be  stated  that  according  to  this  "  newer  criti. 


118  THEIR   AUTHORSHIP   AND   COMPOSITION. 

Closely  related  to  the  author  and  mode  of  composition 
of  the  five  books  is  the  date  of  these  several  portions. 
Some  have  urged  that  the  "  priestly  code  "  (Elohistic)  was 
the  oldest;  others  have  as  stoutly  maintained  that  it  was 
the  newest  and  surely  belonged  to  the  post-exilic  era. 

4.  Coifiposition. — The  Pentateuch — five  books — are  com- 
plex, yet  are  conceded  generally  to  have  unity — in  fact,  to 
be  one  volume.  Who  was  the  author?  Who  gave  the 
contents  this  unity? 

(1)  There  is  no  definite  avowal  of  authorship  that  can 
surely  apply  to  the  entire  Pentateuch;  but  it  must  apply 
to  very  large  portions,  especially  of  the  law.  For  ex- 
ample, God  commanded  Moses  to  write  the  words  of  the 
covenant  (Ex.  34:  27);  Moses  declared  these  words  to 
Israel  (Ex.  35  :  1).  Again,  it  is  declared  in  Deut.  31  :  24, 
26,  that  "when  Moses  had  made  an  end  of  writing  the 
words  of  this  law  in  a  book,  until  they  were  finished,  that 
Moses  commanded  the  Levites,  .  .  .  Take  this  book  of  the 
law,  and  put  it  in  the  side  of  the  ark  of  the  covenant  of 
the  Lord  your  God."  This  is  a  distinct  assertion  that 
Moses  was  the  writer  of  some  Hebrew  code  of  laws. 

(2)  The  whole  history  is  chiefly  given  in  the  third 
person.  "  The  Lord  spake  unto  Moses  "  frequently  occurs. 
"And  Moses  commanded,"  "Moses  said,"  or  "the  words 
of  Moses,"  are  other  expressions  frequently  found  in  the 
Pentateuch. 

(3)  Deut.  34  records  the  death  of  Moses.  This  was 
added  by  a  later  hand  (see  "unto  this  day"  of  v.  6), 
probably  during  the  period  of  the  judges. 


cism  "  the  Pentateuch  was  composed  in  three  or  more  portions,  called 
the  Elohistic,  Jehovistic  and  Deuteronomic. 


THE    BOOKS    OF    THE    LAW:  119 

(4)  The  five  books  contain  several  remarkably  graphic 
and  interesting  biographies.  Yet  obviously  the  main  pur- 
pose of  these  books  is  not  biography,  nor  personal  or 
local  history.  The  object  is  clearly  to  record  the  origin 
of  the  Hebrew  people  and  to  chronicle  their  early  national 
annals. 

(5)  Is  this  form  not  the  one  most  suitable  for  national 
annals  ?  Indeed,  if  these  books  were  intended  as  authentic 
theocratic  records  of  the  origin  of  the  race,  and  of  the 
Hebrew  nation  in  particular,  would  not  the  itnpersonal 
form  be  the  most  natural  one  ?  In  official  annals  of  gov- 
ernment, the  identity  of  the  writer  is  of  smaller  importance 
than  the  authenticity  of  the  record.  Moses,  as  the  great 
lawgiver  of  Israel,  would  be  expected  to  leave  some  au- 
thorized copy  of  the  laws  received  for  the  people.  Hebrew 
writers  say  he  did  leave  such  a  record  in  the  Pentateuch. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  books  themselves  against  their 
general  Mosaic  authorship.  There  are  many  incidental 
evidences  in  favor  of  it, — particularly  that  they  were 
written  as  national  annals  by  direction  and  authority  of 
Moses ;  the  death  of  Moses  being  added  by  an  authorized 
successor.  Since,  however,  the  discussions  respecting  the 
composition  and  date  of  the  Pentateuch  are  pressing  upon 
popular  attention,  a  few  leading  points  may  be  helpful  in 
showing  the  character  of  the  conflict. 

5.  Against  the  traditional  view,  beside  the  literary  and 
linguistic  argument,  the  newer  criticism  urges — (i)  That 
the  Pentateuch  sanctions  one  central  place  of  worship. 
But  it  is  said  that  several  places  were  allowed  up  to  the  time 
of  Josiah.  To  this  it  may  be  said,  one,  the  tent,  prevailed 
in  the  wilderness.  (2)  Leviticus  requires  priests  to  be  of 
the  family  of  Aaron,  while  Deuteronomy  and  Judges  ap- 


120  THEIR    AUTHORSHIP   AND    COMPOSITION. 

pear  to  treat  Levites  as  priests.  (3)  The  Levitical  cities 
named  in  the  Pentateuch,  it  is  asserted,  are  not  to  be  found 
as  such  in  history.  (4)  The  feasts  were  not  observed  as 
the  Pentateuch  required.  (5)  The  details  of  the  narrative 
and  history  of  the  Hebrew  worship  are  said  to  be  against 
the  early  Mosaic  date. 

6.  Let  it  be  carefully  noted :  (1)  that  a  general  Mosaic 
origin  of  the  Pentateuch  accounts  for  repeated  assertions 
about  Moses  in  the  texts  (p.  118).  It  does  not  imply  that 
Moses  wrote  the  account  of  his  own  death,  nor  make  him 
responsible  for  the  divisions  of  the  work  m\.o  five  books,  nor 
into  chapters,  nor  verses,  nor  even  Hebrew  sections.  Nor 
for  changes  by  later  prophets,  or  compilers  through  whom 
the  Pentateuch  may  have  reached  its  present  literary  form. 

(2)  It  does  not  preclude  the  use  of  ancient  documents 
by  Moses.  These  may  have  been  incorporated,  or  recast, 
for  his  purpose.  Nor  does  this  view  preclude  growth  in 
forms  of  worship,  nor  changes  in  the  Hebrew  ritual  estab- 
lished by  Moses. 

(3)  But  if  Moses  was  not  the  author  of  the  body,  or 
substance,  of  the  law  and  worship  in  the  Pentateuch, 
it  seems  difficult  to  clear  the  supposed  writers  of  literary 
fraud. 

It  is  well-nigh  inconceivable  that  writings  cast  in  such  a 
high  moral,  solemn  and  spiritual  tone  could  be  written  by 
those  who  would  deliberately  deceive  readers. 

(4)  It  has  been  lately  proved  that  our  Pentateuch  is  prac- 
tically the  same  as  that  known  to  the  author  of  the  Book  of 
Wisdom.  The  existence  of  separate  documents  is  without 
historical  evidence,  and  rests  solely  on  conjectures  and  the 
knowledge  of  a  language  but  partially  investigated.  1 

1  See  Margoliouth,  Lines  of  Defence  of  the  Biblical  Revelation, 
chapter  II.,  London,  1900. 


THE   BOOKS   OF   THE   LAW*.  121 

(5)  The  Hebrew  people  must  have  had  laws  and  a  his- 
tory for  ages  previous  to  the  exilic  period.  The  new  theory 
of  the  Pentateuch  leaves  them  practically  without  either. 
The  records  of  the  five  books  of  Moses,  however,  fit  well 
with  what  we  know  of  Egypt  and  other  nations  in  the  Mo- 
saic era.  Grant  for  a  moment  that  this  is  not  history: 
here  stands  Moses,  the  greatest  name  in  ancient  records  as 
lawgiver,  reformer  and  general,  to  be  accounted  for.  How 
did  he  get  into  history? 

(6)  Early  Hebrews,  though  enslaved  in  Egypt,  were  not 
a  savage  horde.  The  monumental  records  of  the  Mosaic 
age  constantly  coming  to  light  are  confirming  the  civiliza- 
tion existing  in  the  land  where  they  dwelt  and  the  accuracy 
of  the  Mosaic  records. 

(7)  The  weight  of  literary  and  linguistic  facts,  in  truth, 
tells  strongly  for  the  general  Mosaic  authority  for  the 
Pentateuch.  The  language  has  an  infusion  of  Egyptian 
words ;  yet  the  system  of  religious  worship  is  in  sharp 
contrast  with  Egyptian  sacrifices  and  worship.  The  place 
of  worship  is  the  tent  (tabernacle) ;  excommunication  is  to 
be  "  cast  out  of  the  camp;  "  the  scapegoat  goes  into  the 
wilderness ;  all  the  ritual  speaks  of  the  wandering  life, 
consistent  with  the  belief  that  the  main  portion  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch was  written  at  the  period  and  in  the  region  where 
it  professes  to  have  been  written.  The  ark  had  the  law ; 
and  the  ark  certainly  dates  back  to  the  wilderness  life. 

(8)  Finally,  the  archaic  quality  in  the  language  of  the 
Pentateuch  is  marked  ;  the  apparent  tinges  of  a  later  speech 
are  too  few  to  weigh  against  the  weightier  evidence  for  the 
antiquity  of  the  writing.  Recent  discoveries  are  increasing 
the  proofs  for  the  Mosaic  age  and  composition  ;  while  all 
the   material    objections  of  modern  criticism  can  be  ex- 


122  THEIR   AUTHORSHIP   AND   COMPOSITION. 

plained  upon  the  Mosaic  theory.  The  objectors  are  beset 
with  more  numerous  and  far  greater  difficulties.  They 
must  reconstruct  Hebrew  history,  account  for  the  long- 
existing  belief  in  regard  to  that  history  as  popularly  ac- 
cepted, and  explain  the  monumental  and  other  records 
which  fit  well  into  Hebrew  history  as  hitherto  understood, 
and  which  imply  the  early  existence  of  the  Hebrew  people 
in  conditions  similar  to  those  described  in  the  Mosaic 
books. 

(9)  Conceive  for  a  moment  portions  of  the  Pentateuch,  as  the  Ten 
Words,  or  Commandments,  to  have  been  composed  by  Ben-Sirach, 
Ezra,  or  Hilkiah  ;  that,  to  win  acceptance  and  reverence,  the  writer 
had  ascribed  them  to  Moses,  and  had  invented  the  story  of  Sinai, 
the  writing  on  stone  tables,  with  all  the  details  in  Exodus  19,  20  ff. 
Would  the  Jews  have  given  them  credit  ?  Can  we  conceive  the  credulity 
that  would  regard  such  a  theory  more  credible,  or  "scientific,"  or 
worthy  to  displace  the  traditional  account  imbedded  in  Jewish  litera- 
ture, and  accepted  for  more  than  two  thousand  years  ? 

(10)  The  annals  bear  marks  of  being  composed  at  or  near 
the  period  of  their  occurrence.  A  writer  making  such  a 
record  centuries  later  would  almost  surely  fall  into  errors 
and  anachronisms  which  the  earlier  monumental  records 
would  expose.  Such  a  composition  without  errors  would 
itself  be  a  greater  miracle  than  the  gift  of  supernatural 
guidance  by  divine  inspiration. 

(11)  The  New  Testament  evidence  cannot  be  blown 
aside  by  a  breath.  Jesus  says  of  Moses,  "He  wrote  of 
me"  (John  5:  46,  47).  So  also,  "beginning  at  Moses, 
.  .  .  he,"  etc.  (Luke  24:  27).  The  conclusion  then  is 
that  the  historic  evidence  respecting  the  general  Mosaic 
authority  for  the  first  five  books  of  the  Bible  is  entirely 
trustworthy,  and   modern    research  and  adverse  criticism 


THEIR    AUTHORSHIP    AND    COMPOSITION.  123 

have  caused  new  and  yet  stronger  evidence  to  be  brought 
to  light  in  support  of  that  view. 

(12)  The  remarkable  explorations  in  Egypt  and  Assyria, 
during  the  last  ten  years,  have  well-nigh  revolutionized  for- 
mer knowledge  and  belief  respecting  the  early  civilizations 
of  the  human  race,  and  have  shown  that  the  ancient  great 
empires  of  the  East  possessed  a  literary  culture,  a  literature 
and  a  mastery  of  the  liberal  arts  far  exceeding  anything 
that  had  hitherto  been  conceived  of  by  historians.  The 
explorer  has  uncovered  immense  libraries,  which  have  been 
marvellously  preserved,  a  record  of  the  details  of  a  civiliz- 
ation and  of  a  life  of  a  high  order  of  intelligence.  They 
had  written  and  gathered  all  this  into  these  libraries  two 
thousand  to  three  thousand  years  before  the  days  of  Moses. 
These  tens  of  thousands  of  written  documents  found  also  in 
Egypt,  and  in  the  vast  Assyrian  libraries,  so  far  as  they 
have  been  examined,  tend  to  confirm  the  historical  char- 
acter of  the  Biblical  books  :  more  especially  do  they  confirm 
the  accuracy  of  the  books  attributed  to  Moses.  .  The  Chal- 
daean  account  of  the  flood  is  a  clear  recognition  of  that 
great  catastrophe.  And  yet  the  Mosaic  narrative  is  as  clearly 
not  a  translation  of  the  Chaldsean  nor  of  any  other  early 
record,  but  an  original  work  written  in  the  Hebrew  tongue. 
So  also  the  Tel  el-Amarna  tablets  show  that  when  a  ruler 
of  the  18th  Egyptian  dynasty  accepted  an  Asiatic  form  of 
faith,  the  highest  officers  were  foreigners,  as  the  book  of 
Moses  represents,  and  that  later  they  were  expelled.  And 
Ramses  I.  and  II.  formed  a  new  dynasty,  built  Pa-Turn,  or 
Pithom,  and  Menepthah  a  son  of  Ramses  II. ,  says  that 
Bedouins  (Israelites?)  were  allowed  to  feed  themselves  at 
Succoth.  Thus  the  Mosaic  narrative  is  confirmed  at  these 
and  many  other  points. 


124  THE    BOOKS    OF    THE    LAW: 

The  question  of  the  Pentateuch  is  therefore  far  from  be- 
ing settled  ;  the  advanced  critics  have  yet  many  facts  of  the 
explorer  and  archaeologist  to  fit  into  their  theory.  The 
more  moderate  school  of  critics  have  not  yet  been  fully 
heard.  The  last  word  on.  the  authorship  of  the  "  five  books 
of  Moses  "  has  not  been  spoken.  Advocates  of  new  theories 
in  their  fresh  zeal  naturally  assume  extreme  positions,  which 
are  necessarily  modified  under  more  extended  and  sober 
investigation.  Witness,  for  example,  the  recent  Hittite 
controversy.  The  four  main  arguments  which  they  for- 
merly relied  upon,  namely,  that  from  "  tendentious  altera- 
tions," from  "  silence,"  from  the  hypothesis  of  "pieced 
documents,"  and  from  "  words  of  assumed  dates,"  have 
been  frequently  of  late  shown  to  be  elusive,  if  not  delusive, 
and  in  very  similar  sets  of  circumstances  to  lead  to  opposite 
conclusions.  Witness  the  case  of  the  Cairene  Ecclesiasticus. 
Hence  the  historic  traditions  and  records  may  prove  better 
and  more  trustworthy  guides  than  rash  critical  conjectures 
or  "  scientific  hypotheses."  Recent  critical  investigations 
satisfactorily  show  that  the  book  of  Genesis  was  known  to 
Solomon,  and  the  book  of  Judges  to  the  prophet  Isaiah. 
Wise  minds  can  patiently  wait  with  confidence  the  last  word 
on  the  historical  character  and  the  authorship  of  the 
Pentateuch.1 

7.  Contents. — Genesis  gives  the  primeval  history  of  the 
race  and  of  the  patriarchs.  Its  literary  form  is  in  ten  un- 
equal  parts,  each   beginning  with  "These  are  the  genera- 

1  See  Driver's  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament;  Green's  Introduc- 
tion to  the  Old  Testament,  1898;  also  "  Unity  of  Genesis,"  "  Higher  Crit- 
icism and  the  Pentateuch,"  Bissell's  "Pentateuch,"  Hastings'  Diction- 
ary of  the  Bible,  "Genesis,"  "  Pentateuch,"  etc.  Hilprecht,  "  Discov- 
eries in  Assyria;"  Naville,  "Dawn  of  Civilization,"  etc.  3  vols. 
Margoliouth  "  Lines  of  Defense  of  Bibical  Revelation,"  London,  1900. 


THEIR    AUTHORSHIP    AND    COMPOSITION.  125 

tions,"  as  Creation  story,  2:4;  Adam,  5:1;  Noah,  6:9; 
Sons  of  Noah,  10  :  1  ;  Shem,  it:  10;  Terah,  11:  27;  Ish- 
raael,  25  :  12  ;  Isaac,  25  :  19  ;  Esau,  36  :  1  ;  Jacob,  37:2. 
The  last  five  parts  tell  of  the  founding  of  the  Hebrew  nation, 
followed  by  an  account  of  the  sojourn  and  bondage  in 
Egypt,  39-50.  Exodus  tells  of  the  oppression  and  deliver- 
ance of  Israel,  the  covenant,  laws  and  worship  in  Sinai. 
Leviticus  records  rules  for  offerings,  ceremonial  laws,  ordi- 
nances, and  precepts  for  personal,  social  and  religious 
conduct.  Numbers  gives  further  details  respecting  worship 
and  various  laws  at  Sinai,  the  journeying  to  Moab,  events 
on  the  plains  of  Moab,  numbering  the  people,  and  further 
precepts.  Deuteronomy  contains  formal  rituals  of  worship 
and  of  the  law  in  three  parts,  1-4:  40;  4:  44-26;  27-30, 
followed  by  songs,  the  appointment  of  Joshua,  and  the 
death  of  Moses,  the  latter  added  by  Joshua,  perhaps,  or  by 
some  later  hand. 


CHAPTER  X. 

HISTORICAL  (O.  T.)  BOOKS  :    AUTHORSHIP  AND    COMPOSITION. 
THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  AND  THE  MONUMENTS. 

Modern  critics  claim  that  there  are  two  series  of  histories 
in  the  Old  Testament.  The  first  begins  with  creation  and 
ends  with  Jehoiachin's  release  (Genesis  to  2  Kings)  ;  the 
second  begins  with  Adam  and  ends  with  Nehemiah's  second 
visit  to  Jerusalem.  (Chron.,  Ezra,  and  Neh.)  Others,  di- 
viding the  books  according  to  their  literary  form,  find 
twelve  almost  wholly  historical.  In  English  Bibles  these 
twelve  books  follow  the  five  books  of  the  law  ;  that  is, 
Joshua  to  Esther. 

1.  Hebreiu  Order. — In  the  Hebrew  Bible  six  of  these 
books,  from  Joshua  to  2  Kings  inclusive  (not  counting 
Ruth),  are  in  a  separate  division  called  "Former  Prophets." 
They  were  so  named  by  the  Massoretes,  because  these 
books  recount  the  deeds  of  prophets,  and  Jewish  tradition 
declared  that  they  were  written  by  prophets.  The  other 
six  historical  books  are  placed  in  the  last  division,  the 
Hagiographa  of  the  Hebrew  Bible,  following  the  Psalms, 
Ruth  having  the  5th  place  in  that  division,  Esther  the  8th, 
Ezra  the  10th,  Nehemiah  the  nth  and  the  Chronicles  the 
last  and  closing  one  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures. 

2.  Period  Covered. — These  twelve  historical  books  cover 
about  1000  years  of  Hebrew  history  from  the  death  of 
Moses  to  the  restoration  and  rebuilding  of  the  temple  after 
the  great  exile.  This  history  of  ten  centuries  may  be  di- 
vided into  three  unequal  periods  :  from  the  death  of  Moses 
to  Saul,  about  350  years ;  from  Saul's  accession  to  the  fall 
of  Samaria,  about  375  years;  from  the  fall  of  Samaria  to 
the  restoration  of  the  temple  and  Jerusalem  after  Nehemiah, 

(126) 


HISTORICAL    (O.    T.)    BOOKS:  127 

about  300  years.  Or,  again,  the  era  covered  by  the  his- 
torical books  may  be  divided  into — (1)  the  Conquest  of 
Canaan  (Joshua) ;  (2)  The  Rule  of  Judges  (Judges,  Ruth 
and  1  Sam.  1  to  12);  (3)  The  United  Monarchy  (1  Sam. 
12  to  1  Kings  12,  and  1  Chron.  1  to  2  Chron.  10);  (4) 
The  Two  Monarchies  (1  Kings  12  to  2  Kings  25  and  2 
Chron.  10  to  36) ;  (5)  The  Exile  and  Restoration  (Esther, 
Ezra  and  Nehemiah).  The  books  have  little  regard  to 
crises  in  the  history. 

3.  Authors. — The  authors  of  the  twelve  historical  books 
are  not  definitely  known.  According  to  Jewish  tradition 
the  chief  writers  of  them  were  Joshua,  Samuel,  Jeremiah, 
Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  Nathan,  Gad  the  Seer,  Ahijah,  Iddo, 
Shemaiah  and  other  prophets.     See  9. 

4.  Joshua  is  so  named  from  the  exploits  of  the  hero  de- 
scribed in  it,  and  not  as  a  mark  of  authorship.  Modern 
critics  have  grouped  it  with  the  five  books  of  Moses,  and 
called  the  whole  "The  Hexateuch."  But  if  Joshua  was 
once  joined  to  the  Pentateuch,  it  must  have  been  separated 
early,  before  the  rise  of  the  Samaritans,  for  they  have  the 
Pentateuch,  but  not  the  book  of  Joshua. 

Author. — Large  portions  record  the  exploits  and  ad- 
dresses of  Joshua,  and  must  have  been  written  by  him  or  by 
an  eye-witness  soon  after  the  events.  See  "  until  this  day," 
implying  a  record  not  long  after  the  events.  See  chaps. 
J>  3>  5>  7>  23,  24. 

Contents. — There  are  two  parts — 1,  the  entrance  and  par- 
tial conquest  of  Canaan  by  Joshua  ;  2,  the  settlement  of 
the  12  tribes  in  Canaan,  and  the  division  of  the  land  among 
them.  The  whole  records  the  history  of  Israel  from  the 
death  of  Moses  to  that  of  Joshua. 

5.  Judges. — This  book  is  so   named   because  it  records 


i28  AUTHORSHIP   AND   COMPOSITION. 

the  deeds  of  some  of  the  early  judges  (about  thirteen)  who 
were  raised  up  to  deliver  Israel  from  the  oppression  of 
hostile  nations  and  tribes  on  its  borders.  The  length  of 
the  period  covered  by  this  book  is  variously  computed  from 
250  to  450  years.  The  supposed  reference  to  the  length 
of  this  period  in  the  speech  of  Paul  (Acts  13:  19,  20)  is 
now  generally  regarded  as  referring  not  alone  to  the  period 
of  the  judges,  but  to  the  possession  of  the  land  from  the 
Abrahamic  promise  to  Joshua.  "  He  gave  them  their  land 
for  an  inheritance,  for  about  four  hundred  and  fifty  years : 
and  after  these  things  he  gave  them  judges  until  Samuel" 
(Acts  13  :  19,  20,  Revised  Version).  It  is  evidently  a  book 
of  annals.  The  author  is  not  known,  though  the  Talmud 
ascribes  it  to  Samuel,  and  this  is  a  popular  belief.  It  ap- 
pears to  have  been  gathered  from  various  documents,  to 
impress  moral  and  religious  lessons.  The  difficulties  of  the 
book  are  the  chronology,  apparently  two  introductions,  and 
the  adjustment  of  the  rule  of  the  several  judges.  It  con- 
tains some  of  the  most  deeply  interesting  biographical 
sketches  in  the  Old  Testament.  The  reader  never  wearies 
of  the  stories  of  Gideon,  Samson,  Deborah  and  Jeph- 
thah. 

6.  Ruth. — The  book  itself  fixes  the  period  when  the 
beautiful  heroine  lived.  It  was  "  in  the  days  when  the 
judges  ruled"  (Ruth  1  :  1).  But  this  does  not  fix  the 
date  of  its  composition.  Unless  the  closing  verses  were 
added  by  another  than  the  original  author,  it  cannot  have 
been  written  before  the  time  of  David.  In  the  Hebrew 
Bible  it  is  placed  as  the  fifth  book  after  the  Psalms.  In  the 
Septuagint  it  follows  Judges,  as  in  English  Bibles.  His- 
torically it  may  be  counted  an  appendix  to  Judges  an i  an  in- 
troduction to  the  books  of  Samuel.    It  may  have  been  written 


HISTORICAL    (O.   T.)    BOOKS!  129 

by  Samuel,  as  one  Jewish  tradition  asserts.  The  Arama- 
isms,  which  are  supposed  by  some  to  indicate  a  later  date, 
are  represented  as  spoken  by  foreigners  and  are  not  in  the 
language  of  the  author.  They  are  not  conclusive  against 
an  early  date.  Nor  is  the  mention  of  "plucking  off  the 
shoe"  against,  but  rather  in  favor  of,  its  composition  as 
early  as  the  period  of  David.  The  book  is  a  touching  and 
dramatic  picture  of  domestic  life  in  that  period. 

7.  Samuel. — The  two  books  of  Samuel  were  originally 
one  in  the  Hebrew  Bible.  Even  the  Massoretic  note  at  the 
end  of  the  second  book,  giving  the  number  of  verses,  treats 
them  as  one  book.  The  Septuagint  regarded  the  books  of 
Samuel  and  of  Kings  as  a  complete  history  of  the  Hebrew 
kingdom,  and  divided  them  into  four,  calling  them  "  Books 
of  the  Kingdoms."  This  division  is  followed  in  the  Latin 
and  Douay  versions,  where  they  are  named  the  1st,  2d,  3d 
and  4th  Books  of  Kings.  The  division  was  introduced 
into  Hebrew  printed  Bibles  in  15 18. 

The  author  of  the  first  two,  now  called  1  and  2  Samuel, 
is  unknown.  The  name  of  the  books  probably  arises  from 
the  fact  that  Samuel  is  the  hero  of  the  first  part.  Samuel 
could  have  written  only  twenty-four  chapters  of  the  first 
book,  since  the  twenty-fifth  chapter  records  his  death. 
The  contents  indicate  that  official  records  may  have  been 
consulted  by  the  writer,  and  national  hymns  were  incor- 
porated in  the  work,  as  the  song  of  Hannah  (1  Sam.  2:1- 
10);  David's  song  over  Abner  (2  Sam.  3:33,  34);  his 
thanksgiving  song,  and  his  farewell  song  (2  Sam.  22;   23  : 

1-7). 

The  date  of  composition  was  according  to  some  not  later 
than  700  b.  c,  but  others  say  about  David's  time.  "It  is 
pure  Hebrew,  free  from  Aramaisms  and   late  forms.     Con- 


J  30  AUTHORSHIP    AND    COMPOSITION. 

structions  such  as  are  found  in  Kings  are  not  found  in 
Samuel."  The  difficulties  are  not  important,  being  the 
adjustment  of  the  chronology,  the  variations  between  the 
Hebrew  and  Greek  texts,  and  the  appare?it  discrepancies,  as 
i  Sam.  23:  19;  24:  22,  and  ch.  26. 

8.  Kings. — The  two  books  of  Kings  (one  in  Hebrew) 
are  a  continuation  of  the  history  in  the  books  of  Samuel. 
The  author  is  not  certainly  known.  Jewish  tradition 
names  Jeremiah,  and  the  language  and  style  favor  the  tra- 
dition. Later  scholars  have  conjectured  that  the  author 
was  Ezra  or  Baruch.  The  writer  used  existing  records,  as 
"Acts  of  Solomon,"  "  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Judah  " 
and  "  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Israel  "  (1  Kings  11  :  41 ; 
14:  19,  29).  Yet  there  is  a  unity,  a  peculiar  plan  and 
symmetry  of  purpose  in  the  books,  indicative  of  a  well- 
wrought  work,  and  not  a  mere  compilation.  The  date  can- 
not be  earlier  than  the  exile.  It  probably  belongs  to  the 
last  half  of  the  period  of  the  exile.  Recent  Assyrian  dis- 
coveries have  thrown  much  new  light  upon  the  various 
dynasties  mentioned  in  the  books.1  The  obscurities  are  not 
many  nor  important,  and  scholars  have  suggested  various 
reasonable  explanations.  These  books  close  the  "Former 
Prophets"  of  the  Hebrew  Bible. 

9.  Chronicles. — These  two  books  were  also  originally 
one,  and  are  placed  at  the  end  of  the  Hebrew  Bible.  The 
Hebrew  title  is  "The  Diaries"  or  "The  Affairs  of  the 
Times."  The  Septuagint  calls  them  "  Paralipomena"  or 
"Things  Omitted,"  under  the  erroneous  idea  that  they 
were  intended  to  supply  omissions  in  the  history  in  the  four 
books  of  Kings.     Jerome  named  them  "  Chronicles,"  and 

1  See  Hilprecht,  Discoveries  in  Assyria;  Sayce,  Fresh  Light,  etc., 
and  Rogers,  Assyria,  Chaldrea,  etc. 


HISTORICAL    (0.   T.)    BOOKS:  131 

was  followed  by  Luther  and  by  the  English  translators. 
Their  composition  is  ascribed  to  Ezra  by  Jewish  and  Chris- 
tian tradition,  and  in  language  and  style  they  resemble  the 
book  of  Ezra.  The  Chronicles  are  clearly  independent 
history,  not  written  to  supply  omissions  in  Kings,  but  to 
give  the  returned  exiles  information  needful  for  them  in  re- 
settling the  land  of  Canaan.  The  tribal  and  family  de- 
scent would  be  very  important  in  settling  inheritances. 
Jerome  said  these  books  form  a  record  of  the  whole  of 
sacred  history.  The  plan  differs  from  that  of  Kings,  because 
of  the  different  purpose  of  the  writer.  The  accounts  of 
the  temple  service,  the  covenant,  the  reforms  under  Josiah 
and  Hezekiah,  point  to  an  early  origin  of  the  Penta- 
teuch. The  date  of  Chronicles  cannot  be  fixed  earlier 
than  the  restoration  from  exile ;  and  as  the  history  ends 
with  the  decree  of  Cyrus,  that  may  be  assumed  as  the 
time  of  their  composition.  Much  of  the  work  is  evidently 
based  upon  existing  and  apparently  official  documents. 
For  example,  the  first  nine  chapters  appear  to  cite  tribal 
genealogical  records ;  and  in  chaps.  23-26  the  priestly 
records  seem  to  be  the  basis  of  the  history.  In  fact,  eleven 
sources  are  distinctly  named:  "the  book  of  Samuel  the 
seer,"  "of  Nathan  the  prophet,"  "  of  Gad  the  seer,"  "the 
prophecy  of  Ahijah,"  "the  visions"  or  "the  story"  of 
"  Iddo  the  seer  against  Jeroboam,"  another  by  him  "  con- 
cerning genealogies,"  "the  book  of  Shemaiah  the  proph- 
et," "the  book  of  Jehu,"  "the  book  of  the  kings  of 
Israel,"  "  the  book  of  the  kings  of  Israel  and  Judah,"  and 
a  book  by  Isaiah ;  see  1  Chron.  29  :  29 ;  2  Chron.  9  :  29  ; 
12:  15;  13  :  22;  16:  11  ;  20:  34;  26  :  22  ;  27  :  7;  32  :  32. 
These  numerous  references  to  existing  books  containing 
more  full  records  of  the  events  very  briefly  mentioned  in 


132  AUTHORSHIP   AND   COMPOSITION. 

the  Chronicles  show  how  abundant  were  the  written 
sources  to  which  the  author  had  access,  and  how  familiar 
he  was  with  the  contents  of  those  original  records.  They 
tend  strongly  to  confirm  the  trustworthiness  of  his 
chronicle.  The  chronicles  sum  up  Hebrew  history,  cen- 
tered in  the  temple-worship  and  the  house  of  David. 

10.  Ezra. — This  book  in  the  Hebrew  Bible  is  the  tenth 
after  the  Psalms.  The  Jews  (Josephus  and  the  Talmud), 
Origen  and  Jerome,  regard  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  as  one 
book  in  two  parts.  But  Nehemiah  has  its  own  title  in  He- 
brew. The  two  books  are  called  Esdras  and  Nehemiah 
in  the  Septuagint,  and  i  and  2  Esdras  in  the  Vulgate. 
Historically  Ezra  follows  close  after  Chronicles  ;  hence  the 
order  in  our  Bibles  is  in  better  accord  with  the  contents 
than  the  order  in  Hebrew  Bibles.  The  author,  according 
to  the  Jews,  was  Ezra.  Modern  critics  admit  that  he  wrote 
a  portion,  but  deem  the  whole  a  compilation  by  some  un- 
known though  contemporaneous  writer.  A  portion  of  it  is 
written  in  Chaldee  or  Aramaic,  e.  g.,  chaps.  4 :  8  to  6  :  6 
and  7  :  1-26 ;  but  these  are  probably  from  public  records. 
The  varying  use  of  the  first  and  third  persons  in  the  last 
portion  of  chaps.  6  to  10  has  a  parallel  in  Daniel  and  Isaiah. 
The  writer  in  the  latter  case  speaks  of  himself  historically  j 
in  the  former  he  writes  of  events  which  he  witnessed.  That 
Ezra  was  the  author  has  been  fairly  sustained.  The  date  must 
be  placed  in  the  fifth  century  before  Christ,  in  the  age  of  Cy- 
rus, etc.,  and  after  Ezra's  return  to  Jerusalem  with  the  exiles. 

11.  Nehemiah. — This  book  is  the  eleventh  in  order  after 
Psalms  in  the  Hebrew  Bible.  The  author  of  the  first  seven 
chapters  was  surely  Nehemiah,  for  it  is  so  avowed  in  the 
book  itself.  The  writer  of  chaps.  8-13  is  questioned  by 
many,  although  Keil  accepts  Nehemiah   as   their  author. 


HISTORICAL    (O.  T.)    BOOKS:  133 

The  objections  urged  against  his  authorship  of  this  portion 
are  that  the  narrative  changes  to  the  third  person,  and  Ne- 
hemiah  is  spoken  of  as  "Tirshatha"  (Neh.  8  :  9),  and  that 
the  name  of  Jaddua  appears  as  high  priest  (Neh.  12:1- 
26),  who  lived  in  the  time  of  Alexander,  a  century  later 
than  Nehemiah.  But  the  other  portions  of  chap.  12  and 
chap.  13  are  usually  credited  to  Nehemiah.  The  language 
of  the  book  has  a  strong  infusion  of  Aramaisms  and  of  words 
of  Persian  origin.  After  an  interval  of  about  twelve  years, 
it  carries  on  the  history  of  Ezra  for  about  thirty  years,  un- 
til the  temple  of  Zerubbabel  was  rebuilt.  It  is  the  latest  of 
the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament. 

12.  Esther. — Historically  this  book  belongs  to  the 
period  of  the  exiles,  previous  to  Nehemiah  and  a  portion 
of  Ezra.  Some  regard  it  as  an  episode  in  the  history  of 
those  Israelites  that  did  not  return  from  exile,  and  an  illus- 
tration of  their  moral  decline.  The  incident  related  in  the 
book  of  Esther  gave  rise  to  the  feast  of  Purim,  still  cele- 
brated among  the  Jews.  This  book  is  the  eighth  following 
the  Psalms  in  the  Hebrew  Bible.  It  appears  to  have  been 
regarded  as  an  appendix  to  the  history  of  the  exilic  period, 
as  Ruth  was  to  Judges.  It  does  not  contain  the  name  of 
God.  It  is  not  quoted  in  the  New  Testament.  Luther  did 
not  hold  it  in  high  esteem,  and  Ewald  declared  it  below 
other  Old  Testament  books  in  character.  The  author, 
some   say,   was    Ezra ;   others    say    Mordecai. 

The  date  of  the  composition  of  the  book  cannot  be 
definitely  stated,  although  the  events  surely  occurred 
between  480  and  430  b.  c.  As  it  seems  to  have  been 
written  by  an  eye-witness,  internal  evidence  favors 
Mordecai  as  author  and  480  to  470  b.  c.  as  the 
date.     The  book  contains  many  Persian  words;   but   the 


l?A  AUTHORSHIP   AND   COMPOSITION. 

literary  character  is  high,  and  the  style  lively.  The  sum- 
mary execution  of  Haman  and  the  sudden  elevation  of 
Mordecai  rind  frequent  illustrations  in  later  history  of  Orien- 
tal courts. 

13.  These  twelve  books  of  the  Old  Testament  contain 
the  richest  history  of  a  race.  Written  by  men  illumined 
by  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  vast  purposes  of  God's  provi- 
dence are  unfolded  with  marvellous  compactness  and  clear- 
ness. The  long  succession  of  bloody  struggles,  the  aston- 
ishing deliverances  of  God's  people,  their  weak  and  wicked 
relapses  into  sin,  the  glorious  power  of  Jehovah  manifested 
to  them,  and  preparing  them  for  the  future  advent  of  Mes- 
siah, the  promised  Redeemer,  give  diversity  and  charm  to 
the  history  and  instruction  to  the  devout  mind.  The  dis- 
tinctly moral  and  religious  purpose  of  these  sacred  writings 
cannot  fail  to  impress  every  reader. 

14.  The  Old  Testament  and  the  Monuments. — 
Searching  criticism  has  been  repeatedly  applied  to  the  his- 
tory, prophecy  and  teaching  of  the  Bible.  The  accuracy 
and  truthfulness  of  the  Scriptural  statements  have  been 
boldly  denied.  But  the  more  thoroughly  the  times  and 
peoples  which  the  Biblical  books  describe  have  been  in- 
vestigated and  understood,  the  more  completely  has  the 
accuracy  of  the  historical  statements  and  illustrations  in 
Scripture  been  confirmed,  as  heretofore  stated.  Chap.  IX., 
§12.  The  explorer,  the  excavator  and  the  decipherer, 
working  together,  have  brought  to  light  in  recent  times 
such  an  overwhelming  mass  of  evidence  respecting  the  long 
forgotten  cities  and  empires  of  the  past,  and  have  uncov- 
ered such  vast  libraries,  literature,  works  of  art  and  of 
skill,  and  have  revealed  such  a  high  state  of  civilization  in 
the  East  at  such  a  remotely  early  age  as  to  amaze  the  world. 

Ancient  cities   of   the   world   have    been    buried    great, 


AUTHORSHIP    AND    COMPOSITION.  135 

empires  have  passed  into  oblivion,  and  later  generations 
had  come  to  doubt  their  very  existence.  But  the  explorer 
defined  and  located  the  hills  and  mounds  under  which  the 
cities  were  buried,  the  excavator  uncovered  the  great 
palaces,  the  marvelous  works  of  art,  and  the  evidences  of  a 
high  civilization,  and  the  decipherer,  grappling  with  the 
very  ancient  records  made  in  a  strange  and  unknown 
writing,  at  last  succeeded  in  reading  these  ancient  records, 
revealing  to  the  astonished  gaze  of  the  world  the  military, 
civil,  social  and  religious  history  of  empires  wholly  for- 
gotten except  as  they  were  mentioned  in  the  books  of 
Scripture  and  here  and  there  by  a  few  secular  writers  of  old. 
15.  The  Restoration  of  Ancient  Cities. —  It  is 
scarcely  more  than  100  years  since  skeptics  and  rationalists 
boldly  asserted  that  no  such  cities  as  Babylon,  Nineveh, 
Lachish  and  Ur  were  historic  places,  or  ever  existed.  The 
Biblical  descriptions  of  them  were  classed  with  highly  im- 
aginative works,  like  the  "  Arabian  Nights"  and  similar 
Oriental  tales  of  fiction.  The  prophecies  therefore  of  their 
destruction,  it  was  asserted,  were  never  fulfilled,  because 
there  never  were  such  cities  to  be  destroyed.  So  the 
doubters  said.  But  the  explorers,  Rich,  1811,  Layard  and 
Rawlinson,  1846,  and  their  companions  and  followers, 
Botta,  Oppert,  Hicks,  George  Smith,  Rassam,  and  more 
recently  Naville  and  Petrie  in  Egypt,  and  Hilprecht  in 
Assyria,  have  uncovered  great  groups  of  cities  peopling  the 
valleys  of  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris  and  the  Nile,  so  that 
we  see  not  only  Nineveh  and  Babylon  and  Ur,  but  scores 
of  other  ancient  cities  named  in  Scripture  and  remarkable  for 
their  size  and  their  civilization,  uncovered  by  the  spade  and 
caused  to  stand  forth  like  an  exceeding  great  army  of  cities 
springing  out  of  the  ground  to  prove  the  Scriptural  records. 


136  HISTORICAL    (O.  T.)    BOOKS  '. 

Thus  the  skeptics  and  the  rationalists  who  questioned  the 
existence  of  these  ancient  cities  and  disputed  the  Biblical 
records  are  silenced  and  put  to  shame. 

1 6.  The  Era  of  Writing. — It  is  hardly  a  generation 
ago  since  not  merely  skeptics  and  rationalists,  but  Biblical 
critics,  asserted  that  Moses  could  not  have  written  the 
Pentateuch.  They  even  attempted  to  show  how  impossible 
it  was  for  it  to  be  written  by  anybody  in  his  age,  since,  it 
was  assumed,  that  no  literature  of  this  kind  outside  of  these 
five  books  of  the  Law  had  been  written,  and  that  even 
writing  was  not  a  common  art  in  Moses'  day.  But  within 
the  past  few  years  these  arguments  have  been  exploded. 
For  a  mass  of  literature  of  a  high  order  has  been  brought 
to  light  in  the  vast  libraries  of  Assyria  as  well  as  in  the 
records  on  the  Nile.  Prof.  Hilprecht,  for  example,  has 
actually  found  libraries  consisting  of  upward  of  30,000 
tablets  (and  believes  that  over  100,000  more  exist),  in  every 
form  of  literature  relating  to  medicine,  law,  society  and 
the  liberal  arts,  and  reaching  back  full  two  millenniums 
before  the  period  of  Abraham.  Similar  ancient  literature 
has  been  found  in  the  great  temples  buried  in  the  valley  of 
the  Nile.  The  critics  who  asserted  a  few  years  ago  that 
Moses  could  not  have  written  the  Pentateuch,  should  they 
now  repeat  their  assertion,  would  be  laughed  at  for  their 
ignorance.  Indeed,  intelligent  archaeologists  declare  that, 
considering  the  abundance  of  literature  and  the  prevalence 
of  writing  in  the  age  of  Moses,  it  would  be  almost  a  wonder 
if  Moses  had  not  written  the  five  books  of  the  law  ascribed 
to  him.  These  written  records  go  back  to  3800  b.  c,  and 
some  aver  that  the  earliest  tablets  may  yet  reveal  a  literature 
4500  to  6000  B.  c. 

17.  The    Hittites   and   their   Empire. — In    the    last 


AUTHORSHIP    AND    COMPOSITION.  137 

quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  Biblical  scholars  of  the 
higher  critical  school  not  only  doubted  the  existence  of  a 
great  Hittite  empire,  but  attempted  to  prove  that  the 
mention  of  the  Hittites  in  the  Bible  was  a  mistake  due  to 
the  ignorance  of  the  sacred  writers. 

Unfortunately  for  these  critics,  while  they  were  conjec- 
turing how  the  Biblical  writers  fell  into  this  supposed 
mistake,  the  explorers  were  finding  inscriptions,  records 
and  monuments  of  these  same  Hittites  widely  scattered  in 
Western  Asia.  These  discoveries  pointed  also  to  hidden 
cities,  once  powerful  and  great,  and  to  a  vast  empire  of  the 
Hittites,  revealing  a  high  state  of  civilization  as  well  as  the 
wide  extent  of  their  sway.  And  each  year  has  added  some 
new  facts  to  our  knowledge  of  this  wonderful  people,  until 
now  a  fairly  full  history  of  the  great  Hittite  empire  can  be 
written,  fully  showing  that  the  Biblical  writers  were  better 
informed  in  regard  to  some  ancient  history  than  their 
modern  critics.  The  accuracy  of  the  descriptions  of  the 
Hittite  peoples  in  the  Bible  is  fully  confirmed  by  these  re- 
cent discoveries.  Thus  step  by  step,  year  by  year,  as  archae- 
ological explorations  progress,  the  historical  truthfulness  of 
the  Biblical  books  is  more  and  more  firmly  established. 

18.  In  view  of  these  discoveries,  attempts  have  been 
made  lately  to  reconstruct  a  civil  history  of  Israel  in  accord 
with  the  monuments.  These  bring  it  into  substantial  accord 
with  the  current  views  held  by  conservative  scholars.  The 
religious  history  and  literature  of  Israel,  however,  are 
assumed  to  be  of  comparatively  recent  origin.  For  ex- 
ample, the  Old  Testament  books  are  supposed  by  the 
higher  critics  to  be  composite,  and  to  have  been  written, 
as  we  have  them,  about  the  period  of  the  exile  or  later,1 

1  See  Prof.  McCurdy,  History,  Prophecy  and  the  Monuments,  3 
vols.,  1894-1900. 


138  HISTORICAL    (O.  T.)    BOOKS. 

though  the  civil  history  of  Israel  began  from  one  thousand 
to  fifteen  hundred  years  before  the  exile.  But  this  splitting 
of  the  civil  from  the  religious  history  does  not  fairly 
account  for  all  the  facts.  If  the  civil  history  has  been 
hitherto  in  the  main  rightly  understood  as  to  periods,  the 
religious  history  almost  inevitably  must  follow  in  parallel 
lines  and  receive  a  similar  interpretation.  Then  the  Jewish 
and  current  Christian  view  of  the  literature  of  Israel  like- 
wise receives  confirmation.1 


1  See  Prof.  Margoliouth,  Lines  of  Defence  of  the  Biblical  Revelation, 
London,  1900. 


CHAPTER  XL 

HEBREW  POETRY  :    POETICAL  BOOKS,   PSALMS,   WISDOM    LITER- 
ATURE, PROVERBS,  JOB,  SONG  OF  SONGS,  LA- 
MENTATIONS,  ECCLESIASTES. 

The  Psalms  were  at  the  head  of  the  Hebrew  group  of 
poetical  books,  and  were  followed  by  Proverbs,  Job,  Song 
of  Songs,  Lamentations  and  Ecclesiastes.  The  latter  book 
is  poetic  in  spirit,  though  not  wholly  so  in  literary  form. 

i.  The  Oriental  mind  delights  in  figures,  metaphors  and 
in  brilliantly-imaginative  forms  of  speech.  The  Hebrews 
were  also  in  surroundings  exceedingly  favorable  for  sub- 
lime poetic  creations.  Poetry  was  their  delight  from  the 
earliest  beginnings  of  their  history.  More  than  one  third 
of  the  entire  Old  Testament  is  poetry.  Its  poetry  is  among 
the  oldest,  the  purest  and  the  most  sublime  in  the  world. 
It  is  fitted  to  stir  the  deepest  spiritual  nature  of  man  in  all 
ages.  In  other  languages  much  of  the  poetry  relates  to 
the  temporal  interests  of  the  people;  Hebrew  poetry  is 
truly  the  daughter  of  religion. 

2.  Forms  of  Hebrew  Poetry. — Strictly  there  is  neither 
epic  nor  dramatic  poetry  in  Hebrew.  The  reason  is  ob- 
vious. Epic  poetry  springs  from  an  effort  to  glorify  human 
greatness — the  heroic  in  man ;  the  Hebrew  was  taught  to 
glorify  God.  Hebrew  poetry  is  almost  wholly  lyric  and 
didactic,  and  some  add  also  gnomic.  There  are  no  lyrics 
in  the  world  comparable  with  the  Psalms  of  David,  no 
gnomic  poetry  equal  to  the  Proverbs,  and  no  didactic  poem 
so  perfect  in  form,  so  profound  and  majestic  in  thought  or 
so  exalted  and  spiritual  in  conception  as  the  book  of  Job. 

3.  Rhyme  and  metre,  common  in  modern  poetry,  are 
seldom  found  in  Hebrew.  Josephus  tried  to  find  hexame- 
ters in  the  songs  of  Ex.  15  and  Deut.  32,  and  trimeters  or 

(139) 


140  HEBREW   POETRY   AND   POETICAL   BOOKS. 

pentameters  in  the  Psalms.  Eusebius  sought  an  heroic 
measure  of  sixteen  syllables;  while  Jerome  represented 
Job  as  written  in  dactyls  and  spondees,  comparing  Hebrew 
poetry  with  the  Greek  poems  of  Pindar,  Alcseus  and  Sap- 
pho. Later  scholars,  as  Sir  W.  Jones,  Grove  and  Saal- 
schiitz,  have  applied  similar  rules;  but  no  real  system  of 
metres  can  be  found  in  Hebrew  on  any  method  of  vocal- 
izing now  known,  nor  without  destroying  the  Massoretic 
pointing.  Bickell  would  make  it  conform  td  the  Syriac, 
which  is  plausible,  but  has  not  found  much  favor  with 
scholars. 

4.  Parallelisms. — Hebrew  poetry,  as  Lowth  and  others 
have  shown,  consists  chiefly  of  parallelisms  and  a  certain 
swing  and  balance  in  the  sentences  which  give  an  inde- 
scribable charm  to  their  poetic  compositions. 

The  parallelisms  in  Hebrew  have  been  roughly  divided 
into  three  kinds:  (1)  Synonymous,  that  is,  where  each  line 
of  the  distich  or  tristich  has  the  same  thought,  but  in 
varied  expression  ;  (2)  Antithetic,  where  the  thought  of  the 
second  member  of  the  parallelism  is  in  contrast  with  that 
of  the  first ;  and  (3)  Synthetic,  where  the  thought  is  cumu- 
lative upon  the  same  topic. 

5.  Alliteration  and  assonance  are  frequently  used  in 
Hebrew  poetry,  and  rhyme  occasionally,  but  the  latter 
seldom  runs  beyond  two  or  three  lines. 

The  Hebrew  poetic  writers  delighted  in  the  older  and 
sometimes  the  fuller  forms  of  words.  They  use  not  the 
learned  or  artificial,  but  the  simpler  and  more  archaic 
speech,  giving  strength  and  music  to  the  movement  of  their 
sentences. 

6.  Poetic  Books. — There  are  five  so-called  poetical  books 
in  the  Old  Testament :  Job,  Psalms,  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes, 


HEBREW   POETRY    AND   POETICAL   BOOKS.  141 

and  Song  of  Solomon.  But  beside  these,  large  portions 
of  other  books  are  poetic  in  spirit.  The  prophetical  books 
except  Daniel  are  chiefly  poetry.  The  girls  of  Shiloh  sang 
as  they  gathered  grapes ;  the  maidens  of  Gilead  chanted 
the  story  of  Jephthah's  daughter  ;  the  boys  learned  David's 
song  of  lament  over  Jonathan,  and  hunters  and  shepherds 
whiled  away  the  tediousness  of  the  hunt  and  watch,  by 
songs  and  the  flute.1 

7.  Early  Songs. — The  earliest  specimen  of  poetry  in  the 
Old  Testament  is  Lamech's  Sword  Song.  Some  of  the 
most  noted  of  Hebrew  songs,  outside  the  poetical  books, 
are  those  of  Moses  and  Miriam,  of  Balaam,  Deborah  and 
Hannah.  The  following  list,  though  incomplete,  will  be 
helpful  to  the  student : 

Lamech's  Sword  Song Gen.  4  :  23,  24. 

Noah's  Song Gen.  9  :  25-27. 

About  Rebekah Gen.  25  :  23. 

Isaac's  Blessings Gen.  27  :  27-29,  39,  40. 

Jacob's  Farewell Gen.  49  :  2-27. 

Moses' and  Miriam's  Song.  ..  .Ex.  15:  1-19,  21. 

War  Songs,  etc Num.  21  :  14,  15,  17,  18,  27-30. 

Balaam's  Prophecies Num.  23  :  7-10,  18-24;  24  :  3-9,  15-24. 

Moses'  Prophetic  Song Deut.  32  :  1-43. 

Moses'  Blessing. Deut.  ^  '•  2-29. 

Joshua  to  the  Sun Josh.  10  :  12,  13. 

Song  of  Deborah  and  Barak. Judg.  5  :  2-2 1. 

Samson's  Riddle  Song Judg.  15  :  16. 

Hannah's  Magnificat I  Sam.  2  :  1-10. 

David's  Song  of  the  Bow. . .  .2  Sam.  1  :  19-27. 

David's  Song  over  Abner 2  Sam.  3  :  ^^,  34. 

David's  Deliverance 2  Sam.  22  :  2-51  (cf.  Ps.  18). 

David's  Last  Words 2  Sam.  23  :  1-7. 

David's  Thanksgiving 1  Chron.  16  :  8-36. 

1  See  Reuss,  Hebrew  Poetry,  Herzog's  Enc. 


142  HEBREW   POETRY   ASD    POETICAL   BOOKS. 

Hezekiah's  Song Isa.  38  :  10-20. 

Jonah's  Prayer  Song Jonah  2  :  2-9. 

Habakkuk's  Prayer  Song Hab.  3  :  2-19. 

There  are  four  original  songs  in  the  New  Testament  cast 
in  the  spirit  of  Hebrew  poetry :   the  so-called, 

Magnificat Luke    I  :  46-55. 

Benedictus Luke   1  :  68-80. 

Gloria  in  Excelsis Luke   2  :  14. 

Nunc  Dimittis Luke  2  :  29-33. 

8.  The  Psalms. — The  book  of  Psalms  in  the  Hebrew  Bible 
was  the  first  of  the  KUhubhim  or  "Writings."  The  Psalms, 
Proverbs  and  Job  were  regarded  as  pre-eminently  poetical 
books,  and  the  Massoretes  distinguished  them  by  a  peculiar 
accentuation.  The  Psalms  were  called  "Sepher  Thellim" 
or  "Book  of  Praises."  The  Greeks  called  it  " Psalmos" 
from  which  the  English  "Psalms"  is  derived. 

9.  Groups  of  Psalms. — The  Psalms,  counted  commonly 
one  book,  in  the  Hebrew  Bible  are  divided  into  five  collec- 
tions, rather  inaptly  termed  "books"  in  the  Revised 
English  Version. 

The  end  of  each  of  the  first  four  "  books  "  is  indicated 
by  a  doxology. 

The  books  are:  (I.)  Ps.  1-41 ;  (II.)  Ps.  42-72;  (III.) 
ps.  73-89;  (IV.)  Ps.  90-106;  (V.)  Ps.  107-150.  The 
topics  of  the  Psalms  have  been  compared  to  an  oratorio  in 
five  parts  :  (1)  Decline  of  man  ;  (2)  Revival ;  (3)  Plaintive 
complaint ;  (4)  Response  to  the  complaint ;  (5)  Final 
thanksgiving  and  triumph. 

This  five-fold  division  of  the  Psalms  is-  very  ancient, 
but  when  or  by  whom  it  was  made  is  uncertain.  Some 
ascribe  it  to  Nehemiah  or  his  time  ;    it  certainly  is  two  or 


HEBREW    POETRY    AND    POETICAL    BOOKS.  14^ 

three  centuries  older  than  the  Christian  era.  The  division 
appears  in  the  Septuagint.  Why  it  was  made  is  not  clear. 
Some  conjecture  that  it  was  in  accord  with  the  supposed 
chronological  order  of  the  Psalms,  or  was  an  arrangement 
according  to  authors,  topics,  or  for  liturgical  use.  The  col- 
lection could  not  have  been  completed  before  the  time  of 
Ezra.   About  fifty  Psalms  are  quoted  in  the  New  Testament. 

10.  Authors. — The  titles  or  inscriptions  of  the  Psalms  are 
not  by  the  original  authors,  but  belong  to  an  early  age. 
They  are  attached  to  101  psalms.  The  49  not  having  titles, 
the  Talmud  calls  "  Orphan  Psalms."  According  to  these 
titles,  73  psalms  are  ascribed  to  David,1  12  to  Asaph  one 
of  David's  singers,  12  to  the  sons  of  Korah2  a  priestly 
family  of  singers  of  David's  time,  2  (72d  and  127th)  to 
Solomon,  1  (90th)  to  Moses,  and  1  (89th)  to  Ethan. 
The  other  49  are  anonymous.  But  the  Septuagint  assigns 
the  127th  to  Jeremiah,  the  146th  to  Haggai,  and  the  147th 
to  Zechariah.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  great  Hallel 
songs,  Ps.  115-118,  and  the  famous  alphabetic  hymn,  the 
119th,  are  among  the  anonymous  songs. 

11.  Classification  of  Songs. — The  most  ancient  classification, 
aside  from  the  division  into  five  collections,  is  also  found 
in  the  titles.  The  meaning  of  these  is  obscure.  Some  are 
termed  Shir,  a  solo  for  the  voice  ;  Mizmor,  song  of  praise 
accompanied  with  an  instrument ;  Maschil,  ode  or  didactic 
song  ;  Michtam,  a.  catch-word  poem  (Delitzsch)  ;  Shiggaion, 
an  excited  ode ;    T'phillah,   a  prayer-song;  Shir  jedidoth, 


1  The  Septuagint  ascribes  85  psalms  to  David.  The  New  Testament 
cites  Pss.  2  and  95  as  his.  This  reduces  the  number  by  anonymous 
writers  to  34.  But  Delitzsch  thinks  only  50  can  be  defended  as  David's 
from  internal  evidence. 

2  If,  however,  Ps.  88  is  ascribed  to  Hemnan,  as  some  render  the  title, 
then  only  1 1  were  by  the  sons  of  Korah. 


144     HEBREW  POETRY  AND  POETICAL  BOOKS. 

a  song  of  loves ;  Shir  hamma'aloth,  a  song  of  ascent  or 
pilgrim  songs;  Kinah,  dirge  or  elegy.  Modern  groups 
are  based  upon  the  contents,  as  seven  (some  say  eight) 
penitential  (6th,  25th,  32d  [38th],  51st,  io2d,  130th,  143d), 
seven  imprecatory  psalms  (35th,  5 2d,  58th,  59th,  69th, 
109th,  137th),  pilgrim  songs,  psalms  of  thanksgiving,  of 
adoration,  of  faith  and  hope,  Messianic  psalms,  and  historic 
psalms. 

Some  psalms  have  parallelisms  or  longer  stanzas,  each 
beginning  with  an  initial  letter  corresponding  to  the  twenty- 
two  letters  of  the  Hebrew  alphabet.  There  are  seven  of 
these  alphabetic  psalms  and  five  other  alphabetic  poems 
in  the  Old  Testament.  Some  psalms  are  choral,  as  24th, 
115th,  135th;  some  gradational,  as  121st,  124th.  Of  the 
psalms  ascribed  to  David,  several  have  Chaldaic  or  Aramaic 
forms  that  betray  a  later  editing. 

12.  Date. — The  date  of  the  composition  of  only  a  few 
of  the  Psalms  can  now  be  determined.  For  example,  Ps. 
18  is  distinctly  ascribed  to  David,  when  "The  Lord  had 
delivered  him  out  of  the  hand  of  all  his  enemies,  and  out 
of  the  hand  of  Saul."    2  Sam.  22:1. 

David  must  have  composed  many  Psalms,  for  he  was 
popularly  called  "  the  sweet  psalmist  of  Israel,"  or  "  pleas- 
ant in  the  psalms  of  Israel,"  as  the  margin  of  the  R.  V. 
renders  it.  2  Sam.  23  :  1.  His  Psalms  were  used  in  the 
first  temple.  For  "  Hezekiah  the  king  and  the  princes 
commanded  the  Levites  to  sing  praise  unto  the  Lord  with 
the  words  of  David  and  of  Asaph."   2  Chron.  29  :  30. 

"  Songs  of  Zion  "  had  gained  a  reputation  for  sweetness 
in  foreign  lands  even  before  the  exile,  as  the  response  of 
the  Jews  indicates  in  Ps.  137:3,  4. 

Many  Psalms  whose  composition  is  assigned  by  some 


HEBREW    POETRY    AND    POETICAL    BOOKS.  145 

critics  to  the  Maccabsean  era  have  been  shown  by  Bishop 
Westcott  to  be  devoid  of  the  "slightest  trace  of  those  in- 
ternal divisions  of  the  people"  which  marked  the  Macca- 
baean  struggle.  Moreover,  all  the  Psalms  most  surely  as- 
signed to  that  era  by  the  critics  belong  to  the  collection 
wherein  Elohim,  the  most  ancient  name  of  God,  is  used. 
In  the  Pentateuch  the  same  class  of  critics  assume  that  the 
use  of  this  ancient  name  proves  that  those  portions  of  the 
Pentateuch  are  from  the  oldest  document.  Hence  these 
Psalms  must  be  antique.  Then,  too,  some  of  these  alleged 
Maccabaean  Psalms  have  musical  titles  prefixed.  But  the 
meaning  of  these  titles  had  been  already  lost  by  or  before 
the  time  of  the  Septuagint  translators.  Yet  these  transla- 
tors were  nearly  contemporary  with  the  Maccabaean  writers. 
If  these  Psalms,  therefore,  had  been  written  by  writers  of 
the  Maccabsean  period,  it  is  incredible  to  believe  that  the 
meaning  of  the  titles  could  have  been  forgotten  so  soon  as 
the  period  of  the  Greek  translators.  Hence  we  conclude 
that  these  Psalms  must  have  been  written  much  earlier. 
The  meaning  of  these  titles  had  been  forgotten  even  when 
the  books  of  the  Chronicles  were  written. 

Again,  it  is  fair  to  assume  that  the  Psalms  allude  to  the 
chief  events  of  importance,  and  to  the  most  distinguished 
persons  in  Hebrew  history,  down  to  the  completion  of  the 
collection  of  the  book  of  Psalms.  Now  David  and  Samuel 
are  the  latest  saints  or  heroes  noted  in  the  Psalms.  Of  the 
great  historical  events  the  prophets  intimate  that  the  res- 
toration would  outshine  any  miracle  of  the  exodus.  Yet 
there  is  no  trace  of  the  wonderful  restoration  of  Israel  in 
the  Psalms  that  can  be  distinctly  recognized.1 

1  See  Margoliouth,  Lines  of  Defence  of  the  Biblical  Revelation,  pp. 
i86ff. 


14h'  HEBREW     POETRY    AND    POETICAL    BOOKS. 

In  historical  events  the  Psalms  end  with  a  mention  of 
those  of  the  captivity.  The  antiquity  of  the  Psalms  may 
be  judged,  therefore,  from  these  facts. 

13.  Topics. — As  many  and  varied  as  human  experiences 
are  the  subjects  of  the  Psalms.  In  several  instances  several 
topics  are  found  in  one  and  the  same  Psalm.  The  subjects 
may  be  roughly  grouped  : 

1.  Psalms  of  Praise. — Ps.  9,  18,  19,  23,  24,  29,  30,  31, 
34,  41,  42,  46,  50,  60,  62,  66,  72,  75,  76,  77,  82,  87,  89, 
91,  92,94,  99,  100,  101,  103,  104,  108,  in,  112,  113,  115, 
116,  117,  119,  138,  139,  144,  I45>  M6,  I47>  x48,  i49>  l5° 
— in  all  48  Psalms. 

2.  0/  Prayer.— Ps.  4,  5,  6,  7,  13,  16,  17,  20,  22,  25, 
26,  27,  28,  32,  35,  38,  43>  51*  54,  55'  56>  57,  59>  61,  64, 
67,  68,  70,  74,  79,  80,  86,  88,  90,  102,  140,  141,  142,  143 
— 39  Psalms. 

3.  Of  Thanksgiving.— Vs.  8,  21,  33,  40,  45,  47,  48,  65, 
69,  71,  81,  84,  85,  93,  95,  96,  97,  98,  107,  118 — 20  Psalms. 

4.  Of  Meditation. — Ps.  1,  2,  3,  io;   11,  12,   14,  15,  36, 

37>  39-  44,  49>  52>  53>  5^  63>  73,  io9,  "°?  137~ 2I  Psalms. 

5.  Pi/grim  Songs. — Ps.  120  to  134 — 15  Psalms. 

6.  Historical  Psalms. — Ps.  78,  83,  105,  106,  114,  135, 
136 — 7  Psalms. 

14.  Wisdom  Literature. — Special  study  has  recently 
been  given  to  this  class  of  Biblical  literature,  so  that  its 
importance  and  meaning  are  now  better  understood.  It 
has  been  denned  and  distinctly  marked  off  from  the  law 
and  Biblical  history  on  one  hand  and  from  prophecy  on 
the  other.  While  it  is  chiefly  poetic  in  spirit  and  expres- 
sion, it  is  further  varied  in  literary  form,  being  sometimes 
lyric,  at  others  dramatic,  epigrammatic  and   gnomic,  and 


HEBREW    POETRY    AND    POETICAL    BOOKS.  147 

expressed  in  proverbs,  riddles,  axioms,  but  always  belong- 
ing to  the  reflective  form  of  thought. 

The  books  containing  it  deal  with  the  profoundest  bio- 
logical, psychical  and  spiritual  problems :  the  mystery  of 
sin  and  suffering,  the  struggles  of  the  soul,  the  philosophy 
of  all  religion  ;  this  is  characteristic  of  the  wisdom  literature 
of  the  Bible.  The  canonical  books  of  Proverbs,  Job,  Song 
of  Songs  and  Ecclesiastes  contain  this  philosophy,  the 
"wisdom"  of  the  Bible.  Similar  reflective  thought  is 
found  also  in  portions  of  the  Apocrypha,  so  aptly  termed 
"  the  transitional  literature  "  of  the  Hebrews. 

15.  Proverbs. — In  Hebrew  the  book  of  Proverbs  begins 
with  "  Mishle  Sti  lomo"  "sayings"  or  "Proverbs  of 
Solomon."  But  this  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  the  title  to 
the  entire  collection,  for  other  titles  follow  at  the  head  of 
sections.  See  Prov.  10:  i  and  25  :  1.  The  Hebrew  term 
for  proverb  is  used  in  a  variety  of  meanings,  as  "  parable," 
"maxim,"  "proverb,"  and  is  even  applied  to  an  extended 
illustration.  See  Micah  2  :  4;  Hab.  2:651  Sam.  10:  12; 
Prov.  1:1,  Eccl.  12:9;  Num.  23  :  7. 

The  proverb  with  the  Oriental  was  and  is  popular,  be- 
cause of  its  brevity,  and  because  it  condenses  great  wisdom 
and  wide  experience  into  a  few  words.  The  "sayings  of 
the  Seven  Wise  Men  of  Greece,"  the  "Golden  Songs" 
ascribed  to  Pythagoras  and  the  "Fables  of  ^Esop "  are 
famous  instances  of  wisdom  in  secular  literature. 

The  Proverbs  of  the  Bible  are  unequaled  in  wit  and 
wisdom.  The  book  abounds  in  polished  and  sparkling 
gems  of  condensed  thought  bearing  the  stamp  of  the  highest 
wisdom. 

The  book  of  Proverbs  presents  a  sevenfold  division,  be- 
sides a  very  full  title  or  caption  in  chap.  I.,  vs.  1-6,  thus ; 


148  HEBREW    POETRY    AND    POETICAL    BOOKS. 

Book  i,  chaps,  i  :  7  to  chap.  9.  Book  2  repeats  the  title, 
chap.  10:  1  to  chap.  22:  16.  Book  3  begins  with  an  ex- 
hortation to  hear  "the  words  of  the  wise"  which  follow 
(or,  some  say  precede),  chap.  22  :  17  to  chap.  24.  Book  4 
has  a  new  title  or  caption  :  "  Proverbs  of  Solomon  which  the 
men  of  Hezekiah,  King  of  Judah,  copied  out,"  chap.  25:  1  to 
Chap.  29.  Book  5  has  also  a  title  or  heading,  "  The  Words 
of  Agur,"  chap.  30:  1-33.  Book 6  is  entitled  "The  words 
of  King  Lemuel,"  and  consists  of  a  few  aphorisms,  chap. 
31:  T-9.  Book  7  concludes  the  collection  appropriately 
with  (in  Hebrew)  the  famous  acrostic  poem  on  the  virtuous 
woman.    Chap.  31  :  10-31. 

16.  The  Structure  of  the  book  of  Proverbs  is  that  of 
poetic  parallelisms,  in  lines  of  single,  double,  triple  or  more 
couplets.  The  sense  or  thought  is  usually  synonymous  or 
antithetic  in  these  couplets.     For  example — 

"  Happy  is  the  man  that  findeth  wisdom, 
And  the  man  that  getteth  understanding  "  (3  :  13), 

is  synonymous  in  thought. 

"A  wise  son  maketh  a  glad  father  : 
But  a  foolish  son  is  the  heaviness  [grief]  of  his  mother"  (10  :  1) 

is  an  antithetic  parallelism. 

"  As  a  bird  that  wandereth  from  her  nest, 
So  is  a  man  that  wandereth  from  his  place  "  (27  :  8), 

is  an  instance  of  simple  comparison. 

"  Wine  is  a  mocker,  strong  drink  a  brawler ; 
And  whosoever  erreth  [reeleth]  thereby  is  not  wise"  (20:  1), 

is  an  example  of  amplification  of  thought. 


HEBREW    POETRY    AND    POETICAL    BOOKS.  149 

"  Yet  a  little  sleep,  a  little  slumber, 
A  little  folding  of  the  hands  to  sleep  : 
So  shall  thy  poverty  come  as  a  robber, 
And  thy  want  as  an  armed  man  "  (6  :  10,  1 1), 

is  a  specimen    of  an    epigram,   and  the  entire  paragraph 
(6 :  6-i  i)  may  be  taken  as  a  Hebrew  sonnet.1 

The  book  of  Proverbs  is  a  storehouse  of  practical  wisdom, 
filled  with  the  choicest  truths  of  past  ages,  and  teaching 
that  the  true  source  of  wisdom  is  Jehovah. 

17.  Authors  and  Date. — Large  portions  of  the  Proverbs 
are  ascribed  to  Solomon,2  even  the  portion  compiled  by  the 
"men  of  Hezekiah,"  but  later  portions  to  Agur,  Lemuel 
and  certain  wise  men. 

The  origin  of  the  Proverbs  must  have  been  very  ancient, 
for  proverbial  sayings  are  a  growth.  The  date  of  the  larger 
divisions  as  collections  may  be  fixed  in  the  period  from 
Solomon  to  Hezekiah,  though  the  completed  collection  as 
we  now  have  it  must  be  placed  at  some  later  period,  but 
previous  to  the  completion  of  the  Hebrew  Old  Testament. 

18.  Job. — The  book  of  Job  is  the  great  dramatic  poem 
of  the  Bible.  It  is  so  named,  not  to  indicate  the  author, 
but  the  hero  of  the  book.  The  name  of  the  author  is  not 
stated.  Jews  and  early  Christian  writers  ascribed  it  to 
Moses.  Many  parts  of  the  book  resemble  the  book  of 
Genesis  in  style,  and  Job  is  represented  as  a  patriarch, 
offering  sacrifice  like  the  head  of  a  great  family,  as  the 
patriarchs  are  described  in  Genesis.15     The  scenes  are  gen- 

'  See  Moulton,  Literary  Study  of  the  Bible,  p.  281. 

2  There  is  a  Jewish  tradition  that  Solomon  composed  the  Song  of 
Songs  in  his  youth,  Proverbs  in  mature  manhood  and  Ecclesiastes  in 
his  old  age. 

3  Driver,  Introduction  to  Literature  of  0.  T.,  p.  405. 


150  HEBREW    POETRY    AND    POETICAL    BOOKS. 

erally  believed  geographically  to  suit  Arabia,  and  the  ex- 
periences of  Moses  might  well  lead  him  while  in  Midian  to 
meditate  profoundly  upon  the  mystery  of  suffering.  The 
contents  imply  in  the  main  that  when  the  work  was  written 
the  Mosaic  ceremonial  worship  was  not  known,  or  at  least 
not  observed. 

Many  scholars,  however,  in  recent  times  ascribe  it  to  the 
age  of  Jeremiah  or  the  Babylonian  captivity  (so  Driver), 
chiefly  on  the  ground  of  obscure  allusions  apparently  to  the 
law;  of  the  advanced  state  of  society  which  the  book  pre- 
supposes and  of  the  nature  of  the  problem  discussed. 

The  reasons  for  this  view  have,  however,  been  rendered 
weak  by  the  discoveries  in  the  past  ten  years  of  the  high  state 
of  society  existing  in  the  East  two  or  three  millenniums 
before  the  age  of  Moses,  and  also  by  the  discovery  of  the  lit- 
erature of  that  remote  period  which  is  found  to  deal  with 
similar  themes.  The  inferences  in  favor  of  a  comparatively 
late  author  in  the  age  of  Jeremiah,  based  upon  the  linguistic 
peculiarities  of  the  book,  have  likewise  been  weakened  by 
the  late  investigations  respecting  the  Hebrew  and  Aramaean 
dialects.  The  supposed  allusions  to  the  law  are  so  obscure 
as  to  render  it  probable  that  they  are  nothing  more  than 
mere  coincidences  of  expression.  The  Aramaisms  maybe 
accounted  for  on  the  view  that  the  book  was  written  in 
Edom,  Arabia,  or  in  the  Euphrates  valley,  since  the  Ara- 
maean was  spoken  before  or  as  early  as  the  time  of  Abraham. 
The  old  suggestion  that  it  was  originally  written  in  ancient 
Arabic  has  lately  been  revived  and  advocated  with  much 
learning  and  skill.1  The  names  are  alleged  to  be  Arabic, 
and  the  scenes  to  fit  an  Arabic  coloring,  and  Uz  is  identi- 

1  See  Prof.  Margoliouth,  Lines  of  Defence  of  the  Biblical  Revelation, 
London,  1900,  pp.  167  ff. 


HEBREW    POETRY    AND    POETICAL    BOOKS.  151 

fied  with  A/-'fss,  south  of  Palestine  in  Arabia.  The  teach- 
ing of  the  book  is  in  no  wise  dependent,  however,  upon  the 
place  of  its  composition,  the  date,  nor  upon  the  nativity  of 
the  human  author. 

19.  The  Structure. — The  book  of  Job  is  a  sacred  drama, 
in  five  (some  say  seven)  parts,  or,  in  modern  phrase,  five 
or  seven  acts.  Unlike  most  modern  dramas,  not  the  end, 
but  the  beginning  is  tragic;  it  has  a  happy  end.  The 
dramatis  personce,  or  characters,  are  Jehovah,  Job,  Satan, 
Job's  wife,  Eliphaz,  Bildad,  Zophar,  Elihu,  children,  ser- 
vants, messengers  and  attendants.  The  book  begins  with 
an  extended  prose  introduction  or  prologue,  describing 
Job's  family  and  possessions  and  the  test  question  of  Satan, 
chaps.  1  and  2  ;  followed  by  (1)  Job's  curse,  chap.  3  ;  (2) 
first  cycle  of  reproofs  by  three  friends  and  answers  by  Job, 
chaps.  4  to  14;  (3)  second  cycle  of  charges  and  answers, 
chaps.  15  to  21  ;  (4)  third  cycle  of  charges  and  answers, 
chaps.  22  to  30;  (5)  Job's  vindication,  chap.  31;  (6) 
Elihu's  argument,  chaps.  32  to  37  ;  (7)  Jehovah's  decla- 
ration and  Job's  submission.  The  book  closes  with  a 
brief  prose  statement  of  Job's  later  prosperity.1 

Some  critics  have  attempted  to  show  by  analysis  that  the 
book  is  a  composite  collection,  but  without  much  success. 
A  widely  acknowledged  principle  of  criticism  is  that  texts 
should  be  regarded  as  entire,  unless  there  are  grave  reasons 
for  a  contrary  view,  and  that  any  explanation  of  a  text  that 
does  not  require  some  secondary  conjecture  to  support  it 
is  to  be  preferred.  The  book  of  Job  as  one,  a  unity,  is  at 
least  intelligible,  but  as  a  patchwork  it  is  next  to  inex- 
plicable.2 

1  See  Moulton,  Literary  Study  of  the  Bible,  pp,  471,  472.  3  ft*. 

2  See  Margoliouth,  Lines  of  Defence  of  the  Biblical  Revelation,  p. 
139,  ff. 


152  HEBREW    POETRY    AND    POETICAL    BOOKS. 

20.  The  Subject. — The  subject  of  the  book  is  contained 
in  Satan's  question,  "  Doth  Job  fear  God  for  naught?" 
i  :  9.  That  is,  Does  he  not  serve  God  for  wages?  When 
Satan  was  baffled,  he  then  declares:  "  All  that  a  man  hath 
will  he  give  for  his  life,"  2  :  4.  That  is,  Satan  implies  that 
the  godly  are  hypocrites,  and  will  throw  away  their  integ- 
rity, their  religion,  their  faith,  to  save  their  life.  Thus  it 
takes  up  broadly  this  profound  problem  of  the  mystery  of 
human  suffering,  upon  which  many  in  our  times  have  made 
shipwreck  of  their  spiritual  character.  From  the  ancient 
and  Oriental  point  of  view,  it  is  also  a  close  philosophical 
discussion  upon  the  question  whether  Job's  reputation  or  the 
integrity  of  his  character  can  be  defended  in  view  of  the 
mysterious  afflictions  that  had  befallen  him.  The  conclu- 
sion of  the  discussion  cuts  under  both  of  the  positions  taken 
by  Satan  and  repeated  often  by  evil  men,  and  proves  that 
true  religion  does  not  spring  from  any  form  of  selfishness.  It 
also  shows  the  rectitude  of  the  divine  government  when  the 
righteous  are  afflicted.  Special  trials  do  not  imply  special 
guilt.  They  may  exhibit  God's  benevolent  design  toward 
the  sufferer,  and  they  are  intended  to  beget  submission  to 
God's  holy  will. 

In  modern  times  some  of  the  greatest  events  and  greatest 
characters  in  history  have  been  set  forth  in  drama.  The 
characters  were  real  persons,  the  great  events  were  historic. 
So,  reverent  and  thoughtful  scholars  accept  this  ancient 
dramatic  book  as  presenting  a  great  historic  character  and 
historic  events  clothed  in  rich  Oriental  figures  and  poetic 
imagery.  Job  was  a  real  person,  mentioned  by  Ezekiel 
and  James,  Ezk.  14:  14,  16,  18,  20;  Jas.  5:  it,  as  dis- 
tinguished for  faith,  patience  and  piety. 

21.  Is  the  Book  History? — Josephus,  Jewish  rabbis  an4 


HEBREW    POETRY    AND    POETICAL    BOOKS.  153 

early  Christian  writers  answered  "Yes."  Some  modern 
critics  answer  "  No,"  it  was  intended  as  a  poetic  creation, 
not  an  historic  production.  Both  answers  may  be  largely 
true.  The  trials,  the  Satanic  influence,  the  losses,  the 
complaints,  the  restoration,  are  surely  true  to  life,  and  may 
be  therefore  historic,  we  may  well  believe.  The  construc- 
tion of  the  poem,  the  order  and  forms  of  the  thought  are 
wrought  out  by  the  inspired  poet,  so  as  to  show  how  human 
history  is  related  to  the  divine  purpose  for  the  comfort 
and  instruction  of  suffering  humanity  in  all  ages. 

22.  Song  of  Songs. — In  the  Hebrew  Bible  the  "Song  of 
Songs"  follows  Job.  In  structure  this  book  is  a  poetic 
dialogue.  Modern  literary  critics  are  not  agreed  respecting 
its  precise  character.  Some  hold  that  it  is  dramatic,  others 
that  it  is  a  lyric  idyl ;  the  author  was  generally  held  to  be 
Solomon  until  about  a  century  ago.  This  view  was  based 
on  the  title  and  statement  in  the  first  clause  of  the  book, 
"The  Song  of  Songs  "  which  is  Solomon's,  i  :  i,  and  on 
the  familiarity  with  the  reign,  person  and  character  of 
Solomon  which  the  book  itself  reveals.  The  linguistic 
forms  found  in  it  appear  also  in  other  poetic  books  and 
songs,  as  that  of  Deborah,  Judges  5  and  Amos,  which  are 
conceded  to  belong  to  a  period  near  to  Solomon.  Some 
modern  critics,  from  a  study  of  its  internal  and  linguistic 
peculiarities,  assert  that  the  title  or  superscription  in  the 
first  verse  was  not  affixed  by  the  original  writer,  but  by 
some  later  hand,  and  assign  the  composition  of  the  work  to 
some  period  between  the  exile  and  the  Maccabsean  era. 
Others,  from  a  similar  study,  urge  that  the  title  is  certainly 
very  ancient,  probably  representing  a  pre-exilic  tradition, 
and  that,  because  the  Jews  believed  it  was  by  Solomon,  gave 
it  a  place  in  Scripture.     It  is  also  alleged  that  the  ancient 


154  HEBREW    POETRY    AND    POETICAL    BOOKS. 

traditional  interpretation  was  unknown  to  the  Septuagint 
translators,  having  been  lost  during  the  exile.1  So  the 
question  as  to  its  authorship  and  date  are  still  unsettled. 

23.  Structure  and  Interpretation. — As  has  already  been 
stated,  the  structure  is  variously  denned.  From  the  change 
in  number  and  gender  in  the  Hebrew,  it  is  clear  that  it  is  a 
dialogue  between  different  persons.  Sometimes  a  woman 
speaks,  and  sometimes  a  man,  and  sometimes  a  number, 
like  a  chorus.  Prof.  Moulton  finds  the  book  to  contain 
seven  idyls,  the  first  being  broken  into  antiphonal  songs 
between  a  bride,  bridegroom  and  an  attendant  chorus. 
Each  of  the  seven  is  broken  into  similar  anthiphonal  strains. 
Others  recognize  six  divisions:  (1)  by  the  bride,  1  :  2  to 
2:7;  (2)  the  bride  on  the  beauty  of  the  bridegroom,  2  :  8 
to  3  :  5  5  (3)  tne  royal  groom  and  antistrophists,  3  :  6  to 
5  :  1 ;  (4)  the  groom  departs  and  is  described,  5  :  2  to  6  :  9 ; 
(5)  the  bride  described,  6  :  10  to  7 :  9 ;  (6)  the  bride's  devo- 
tion, 7:  10  to  8:  14.  Or  in  six  parts  or  acts,  thus:  (1)  the 
lovers  meeting,  1  :  2  to  2  :  7;  (2)  the  Shulamite  songs,  2  :  8 
to  3  :  5  ;  (3)  roval  espousal,  3:6  to  5:1;  (4)  l°st  and 
found,  5  :  2  to  6  :  9 ;  (5)  the  queen,  6 :  10  to  8  :  4 ;  (6) 
the  lovers  in  the  Shulamite's  home,  8:  5-14- 

The  interpretation  is  even  more  varied  than  the  views 
as  to  its  structure.  They  may  be  chiefly  grouped  under 
three  divisions  :  (1)  The  allegorical.  This  is  as  old  or  older 
than  the  Christian  era,  and  held  that  the  love  of  Solomon 
and  the  Shulamite  set  forth  the  love  of  Jehovah  for  his  peo- 
ple. (2)  The  literal  was  the  opposite  extreme  of  the  alle- 
gorical view,  and  was  held  by  the  early  Syrian  school.  In 
later  times  these  views  were  modified  by  the  typical  inter- 
nee Margoliouth,  Lines  of  Defence  of  the  Biblical  Revelation, 
PP-  25-31- 


HEBREW    POETRY    AND    POETICAL    BOOKS.  155 

pretation,  in  which  the  love  of  Solomon  and  of  the  Shula- 
mite  were  held  to  be  a  type  of  the  love  of  Christ  and  the 
Church.  (3)  The  historical  and  moral  view  is  that  the 
Shulamite's  lover  is  not  Solomon  nor  a  royal  person,  but  a 
shepherd  youth,  who  had  won  her  affections  before  she  had 
been  seen  by  the  king.  On  this  view  the  book  has  a  strong 
moral  lesson  in  the  triumph  of  pure  love  for  one  wife  over 
the  arts  of  the  rich  who  may  have  a  harem.  Whatever  may 
be  the  spiritual  lessons  that  it  illustrates,  it  graphically 
shows  the  Hebrew  idea  of  true  bi  idal  and  conjugal  love. 
It  is  aromatic  with  the  fragrance  of  spring  flowers,  singing 
birds  and  the  charms  of  a  sweet  and  strong  love.  It  is 
fitting  that  one  book  of  Scriptures  should  breathe  the  joy, 
peace  and  beauty  that  spring  from  domestic  life  of  human 
love,  a  symbol  and  reflex  of  that  divine  love  Christ  has  for 
His  people. 

24.  Lamentations. — In  the  Septuagint  (Greek)  version, 
followed  by  our  English  versions,  Lamentations  is  placed 
after  Jeremiah.  In  the  Hebrew  Bible  it  is  the  third  of  the 
"  Five  Rolls."  See  Chap.  VIII.  It  is  regarded  as  a  most 
pathetic  Hebrew  elegy  in  five  parts.  The  first  four  parts 
are  acrostics.  The  English  reader  will  notice  that  the  first, 
second,  and  fourth  and  fifth  chapters  have  twenty-two  verses 
in  each,  while  the  third  chapter  has  three  times  twenty- 
two,  or  sixty-six  verses.  Now,  there  are  twenty-two  letters 
in  the  Hebrew  alphabet.  The  first  verse  in  each  of  the 
first,  second  and  fourth  chapters  begins  with  the  first  letter 
in  the  Hebrew  alphabet,  and  the  second  verse  in  each  with 
the  second  letter,  and  so  on  through  the  twenty-two  verses 
of  each  chapter.  It  follows  the  order  commonly  prevail- 
ing in  the  Hebrew  alphabet.  In  the  third  chapter,  how- 
ever, every  third  verse  begins  with  the  successive  letter  of 


156  HEBREW    POETRY    AND    POETICAL    BOOKS. 

the  Hebrew  alphabet.  The  fifth  is  not  thus  constructed, 
and  the  poem  appears  to  have  been  left  unfinished.  The 
subject  is  the  lament  of  the  prophet  over  the  desolation  of 
Jerusalem  and  the  calamities  of  Zion.  The  author,  accord- 
ing to  a  tradition  of  great  antiquity,  was  Jeremiah.  Many 
modern  Hebrew  scholars  urge  a  later  author  and  date,  but 
other  able  Hebraists  do  not  regard  the  arguments  against 
its  authorship  by  Jeremiah  as  conclusive,  and  adhere  to  the 
testimony  of  tradition. 

25.  EccUsiastes. — This  book  may  perhaps  be  regarded 
as  upon  the  border-line  betwixt  Hebrew  poetry  and  Hebrew 
prose.1  It  belongs  to  the  so-called  ''Wisdom  literature," 
the  reflective  and  philosophic  type  of  thought.  Much  of  it 
is  in  prose,  but  frequently  in  elevated  flights  of  thought  the 
writer  almost  unconsciously  swings  into  the  poetic  forms  of 
Hebrew  rhythm  and  parallelisms. 

His  first  utterance  is  of  this  type  : 

Vanity  of  vanities,  saith   the  preacher. 
Vanity  of  vanities:   all    is  vanity. 

Thus  again  chapter  3  : 

"To  everything  there  is  a  season, 
And  a  time  to  every  purpose  under  the  heaven  ; 
A  time  to  be  born,  and  a  time  to  die  ; 
A  time  to  plant,  and  a  time  to  pluck  up  what  is  planted  ; 
A  time  to  kill,  and  a  time  to  heal; 
A  time  to  break  down,  and  a  time  to  build  up  ; 
A  time  to  weep,  and  a  time  to  laugh; 
A  time  to  mourn,  and  a  time  to  dance  ; 

A  time  to  cast  away  stones,  and  a  time  to  gather  stones  together; 
A  time  to  embrace,  and  a  time  to  refrain  from  embracing; 


JOf  course  the  same  might  be  said  of  several  of  the  prophecies, 


HEBREW    POETRY    AND    POETICAL    BOOKS.  157 

A  time  to  seek,  and  a  time  to  lose ; 

A  time  to  keep,  and  a  time  to  cast  away ; 

A  time  to  rend,  and  a  time  to  sew  ; 

A  time  to  keep  silence,  and  a  time  to  speak ; 

A  time  to  love,  and  a  time  to  hate  ; 

A  time  for  war,  and  a  time  for  peace/' 

The  author  is  called  in  Hebrew  "  Qoheleth  " — "  the 
preacher,"  the  "Son  of  David,"  in  the  title  or  superscrip- 
tion. Many  modern  critics  claim  that  this  title  or  super- 
scription does  not  prove  that  Solomon  was  the  author. 
From  the  language  and  the  despairing  tone  of  the  writer 
they  would  assign  it  a  very  late  date  and  to  a  late  author, 
perhaps  in  the  Persian  period  (440-336  b.  a),  or  later. 
Others,  as  Pusey,  Tayler  Lewis,  Milman,  Margoliouth  and 
others,  do  not  regard  the  arguments  for  a  late  date  and 
against  its  origin  in  the  age  of  Solomon  as  conclusive,  and 
hence  adhere  to  historical  tradition  that  the  book  was 
written  by  Solomon  probably  in  his  old  age.  But  the 
question  is  clearly  an  unsettled  one. 

The  theme  of  the  book  is  the  highest  good,  and  is  found 
in  the  conclusion  :  "  Fear  God,  and  keep  his  command- 
ments, for  this  is  the  whole  duty  of  man."     Eccl.  12  :  13. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

PROPHECY  ;     PROPHETS,    THEIR    MISSION,    MESSAGES  ;    PROPH- 
ETICAL   LITERATURE  ;    ISAIAH  \    JEREMIAH  ;    EZEKIEL  \ 
DANIEL  ;    THE    TWELVE    MINOR    PROPHETS. 

Prophecy  is  that  portion  of  Biblical  literature  which  con- 
tains special  divine  messages,  usually  attested  by  an  explicit 
"Thus  saith  the  Lord."  It  forms  a  large  division  of  He- 
brew literature.  It  is  found  in  various  forms  of  prose  and 
poetry,  and  sometimes  where  verse  and  prose  appear  to 
meet  and  overlap.  Thus  in  prophecy  we  find  :  (i)  simple 
discourse  ;  (2)  poetry  ;  Hebrew  parallelisms,  dramatic  and 
lyric;  (3)  figurative  language,  emblems  and  symbols,  highly 
wrought,  as  in  Ezekiel ;  (4)  interlocutory  or  dialogue  forms, 
and  (5)  the  rhapsody  of  visions  disclosing  future  blessings 
and  judgments,  and  enforcing  lessons  from  past  and  pass- 
ing events. 

1.  The  Prophets  therefore  revealed  and  interpreted  the 
will  of  God,  and  were  the  great  religious  teachers  of  their 
age.  "Prophet"  now  is  commonly  taken  in  the  narrow 
sense,  meaning  one  who  "predicts"  or  "foretells" 
future  events.  But  in  Scripture  the  Hebrew  prophet,  in  a 
much  broader  sense,  designates  any  person  authorized  to 
declare  the  will  of  God.  His  chief  mission  was  not  to  fore- 
(158) 


PROPHECY  AM)  PROPHETICAL  BOOKS.       159 

tell  future  things,  but  to  proclaim  righteousness,  truth,  and 
the  worship  of  Jehovah.1  While  prediction  was  a  part  of 
the  mission  of  the  Hebrew  prophet,  it  was  but  a  very  small 
part  of  his  lifework. 

Prophets  were  needed  from  the  earliest  period.  Moses 
was  a  great  prophet.  Deut.  18:  15.  Schools  of  the  prophets 
sprang  up  in  the  time  of  Samuel,  and  those  thus  trained 
were  called  "sons  of  the  prophets,"  a  recognized  profes- 
sional class.  1  Sam.  10:  12  ;  2  Kings  2:  3.  Some  of  this 
class  were  not  divinely  authorized  or  inspired,  however,  to 
teach,  but  were  false  prophets.  (Jer.  14:  14;  23:  21  ;  Ezek. 
22:  28.)  True  prophets  were  sometimes  called  from  out- 
side of  this  class  to  interpret  the  Lord's  will,  and  were 
directed  to  denounce  some  professional  prophets  and  their 
teachings  as  false.   Amos  7:  14,  15  ;   1  Kings  13:  20-22. 

2.  The  Mission  and  Era  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  may  be 
divided  into  five  historical  periods,  each  marked  by  a  great 
crisis,  thus:  (1)  The  establishment  of  the  nation  in  the 
time  of  Samuel.  (2)  The  suppression  of  idolatrous  worship 
in  the  time  of  Elijah  and  Elisha.  (3)  The  proclamation 
of  righteousness  as  a  ground  of  God's  favor  in  the  days  of 
Joel  and  Amos.  (4)  Prophecies  concerning  the  Messianic 
hopes  of  Israel,  as  in  the  time  of  Isaiah.  (5)  The  call  for 
personal  piety  by  repentance  and  reformation,  as  in  the 
days  of  Nehemiah  and  Malachi.  The  Hebrew  nation  might 
cease  to  be  a  theocracy,  and  become  a  subject  people  under 
the  great  world  powers,  yet  God  required  of  his  chosen 
people  purity  of  heart  and  holiness  of  life. 

Thus  the  great  prophetic  eras  were  from  Moses  to  Elijah, 

1  The  early  English  signification  of  "  prophet "  was  not  simply  to 
"  foretell,"  but  to  "  forth-tell."  Thus  a  seventeenth  century  work  on 
"The  Liberty  of  Prophesying"  was  a  plea  for  freedom  in  the  English 
pulpit,  and  not  for  the  liberty  to  foretell  events. 


160        PROPHECY  AND  PROPHETICAL  ROOKS. 

from  Elijah  to  Jeremiah  and  the  great  captivity,  during  the 
captivity  and  the  restoration,  followed  by  four  centuries  of 
silence  preceding  the  Christian  era.  Hebrew  history  from 
the  captivity  to  the  Christian  era  (including  the  four  cen- 
turies of  prohpetic  silence)  may  be  roughly  divided  into 
four  periods:  (i)  Persian  period  (537-33°  B.C.);  (2) 
Greek  period  (330-167  b.  a);  (3)  Maccabsean  period 
(167-63  b.  a);  (4)  Roman  period  to  the  fall  of  Jeru- 
salem (63  b.  a-70  a.  d.).  Keeping  these  in  mind  will 
give  a  clearer  idea  of  some  problems  relating  to  the  prophets 
and  prophecy. 

3.  Prophetical  Literature. — A  sharp  distinction  must 
be  drawn  between  three  diverse  things  :  (1)  The  oral  proc- 
lamation of  prophecies  ;  (2)  The  original  writing  of  such 
prophecies  as  were  recorded,  and  (3)  the  final  collecting 
and  putting  prophecies  into  the  form  in  which  we  now 
have  them.  Keeping  these  distinctions  firmly  in  mind, 
may  further  aid  us  in  examining  several  at  present  per- 
plexing critical  problems.- 

The  great  bulk  of  prophetic  utterances,  even  of  what  may 
have  been  reduced  to  writing,  and  at  one  time  or  another 
circulated  among  the  Hebrew  people,  has  been  lost.  It 
was,  we  may  believe,  of  temporary  importance.  What  has 
been  permanently  preserved  presents  the  substance  of  the  di- 
vine teachings  useful  for  all  time.  It  is  gleaned  from  the 
richest  Hebrew  experience  in  contact  with  world  powers 
for  over  a  thousand  years. 

The  Hebrews  divided  this  great  group  of  their  sacred 
literature  into  "Former  Prophets,"  embracing  the  books 
from  Joshua  to  the  end  of  Kings.  These  have  been  consid- 
ered.   The  remaining  sixteen  prophetical  books,  from  Isaiah 


PROPHECY    AND    PROPHETICAL    BOOKS.  161 

to  Malachi  (excepting  Daniel1)  were  called  "Latter  Pro- 
phets." They  are  now  popularly  regarded  as  pre-eminently 
prophetical  books.  Large  portions  of  these  books  are 
Hebrew  poetry  and  poetic  in  spirit.  Imbedded  in  these 
are  some  of  the  noblest  rhapsodies  and  the  finest  lyrics  in 
the  language,  as  the  Messianic  odes  in  Isaiah  (52,  53),  the 
elegies  of  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel's  doom  song  over  Egypt, 
(32  :  18-32),  and  the  prayer  of  Habakkuk  (3  :    2-19). 

These  sixteen  prophetic  books  are  divided  into  four 
Major  or  greater,  and  twelve  Minor,  or  lesser  prophets. 
The  Major  or  greater  were  not  so  called  because  they  were 
considered  greater  in  character  or  in  importance,  but 
simply  because  their  recorded  prophecies  were  of  greater 
length  than  the  recorded  prophecies  of  those  called  the 
Minor  or  lesser  prophets.  There  are  reasons  for  believing 
that  the  oral  or  unrecorded  utterances  of  some  of  the  so- 
called  Minor  prophets  equalled  and  perhaps  exceeded  in 
length  some  of  those  of  the  so-called  Major  prophets.  It  is 
conceivable  that  only  a  small  part  of  the  lifelong  teachings 
and  messages  of  any  prophet  has  been  preserved  to  our 
time.  It  will  be  convenient  to  consider  these  prophetic 
books  in  the  order  in  which  they  are  found  in  the  English 
versions  of  the  Bible. 

4.  Isaiah — The  prophecies  in  this  book  were  named 
after  Isaiah,  son  of  Amoz,  a  great  prophet  of  Judah  in  the 
reigns  of  four  or  five  kings — Uzziah,  Jotham,  Ahaz,  Heze- 
kiah — and  tradition  adds  Manasseh,  when  he  is  said  to  have 
suffered  martyrdom  by  being  sawn  asunder.  Isaiah  means 
salvation  of  Jehovah. 

1  The  Hebrews  placed  Daniel  among  the  KUhabhim,  the  Hagio- 
grapha  ("Holy  writings  ")  of  the  Greeks.  Various  conjectures  have 
been  made  to  account  for  this,  but  the  reason  for  it  is  Dot  definitely 
known. 


K32  PROPHECY    AND    PROPHETICAL    BOOKS. 

Structure  and  Contents. — The  book  of  Isaiah  consists  of 
two  parts:  (a)  Prophecies,  chaps.  1-35;  (//)  Prophecies, 
chaps.  40-66.  These  two  parts  are  joined  together  by  a 
prose  narrative  of  the  invasion  of  Sennacherib  and  the 
sickness  of  Hezekiah,  chaps.  36-39.  The  first  part,  in 
its  literary  structure,  is  a  collection  of  prophecies  divisible 
m\o  five  sections  or  groups:  (1)  arrangement  and  collec- 
tion, chap.  1:  1-6;  (2)  the  alliance,  1:7-10:4;  (3) 
Assyrian  invasion,  10:  5-12;  (4)  judgments,  13-27;  (5) 
destructions  and  redemption,  28-35.  Imbedded  in  each  of 
these  sections  are  lyrics  and  odes  of  great  beauty  and 
sublimity.  They  lack  in  metre,  but  are  rhythmic  and  majes- 
tic in  movement,  somewhat  resembling  in  form  a  collection 
of  the  odes  of  Horace. 

The  second  part  of  Isaiah,  chaps.  40-66,  according  to 
some  literary  critics,  is  a  rhapsody  on  "  Zion  Redeemed," 
advancing  in  seven  phases  or  steps  to  a  climax.1  It  begins 
by  a  chorus,  or  prelude  of  voices,  40:   1-11,  followed  by 

(1)  Prophecy  against  Babylon,  introduced  by  a  sublime 
description  of  the  power  of  Jehovah,  chaps.  40  :  12-48  :  22. 

(2)  Call  of  the    Redeemer   to  despairing   Zion,  chaps. 

(3)  The  awakening  of  Zion,  chaps.  51  to  52  :  12. 

(4)  Jehovah's  servant  exalted,  chaps.  52:  13-53:  12. 

(5)  Zion  exalted,  chaps.  54,  55. 

(6)  A  Redeemer  in  Zion,  chaps.  56-62. 

(7)  Judgments  and  blessings  on  Zion  restored  and  on 
the  nations,  chaps.  63-66. 

Others  divide  the  second  part  into  three  divisions,  marked 
by  the  phrase  "no  peace  to  the  wicked,"  48:  22  and 
57:  21.     Prof.  W.  J.  Beecher  suggests  that  "each  of  these 

1  See  R.  G.  Moulton,  Literary  Study  of  the  Bible,  p.  396  ff. 


PROPHECY    AND    PROPHETICAL    BOOKS.  163 

divisions  has  three  subdivisions,  and  each  of  these  subdi- 
visions is  resolvable  into  three  separate,  though  often  closely 
connected  little  poems."  In  his  view  these  poems  generally 
coincide  with  the  present  chapters.  While  others  dissent 
from  this,  all  agree  that  the  prophetic  poems  form  one 
composition,  with  unity  of  feeling  not  merely,  but  unity 
also  of  subject  and  purpose. 

Broadly  the  entire  prophecies  in  the  book  of  Isaiah 
centre  about  the  one  great  theme  of  redemption  in  three 
aspects — redemption  promised,  provided  and  accomplished. 
In  poetic  majesty,  in  holy  rapture,  in  pathos,  power  and 
unction  these  prophecies  are  unequalled  in  literature. 

5.  Authorship. — The  book  or  collection  was  uniformly 
ascribed  to  Isaiah,  the  son  of  Amoz,  by  the  New  Testament 
writers,  Christian  scholars  and  Jewish  historians,  includ- 
ing the  authors  of  the  apocryphal  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, Josephus  and  the  Talmuds,  and  was  not  seriously 
questioned  until  within  the  past  century.  The  book  is 
quoted  about  120  times  in  the  New  Testament  as  that  of 
Isaiah,  the  quotations  being  about  equally  divided  between 
the  first  and  the  second  parts  of  the  book. 

The  authorship  has  been  sharply  discussed  during  the 
past  century.  Various  theories  have  been  advanced. 
Ewald  assigned  the  book  of  Isaiah  to  seven  authors,1  and 
other  radical  critics  to  several  more  than  seven  authors. 
Scholars  of  the  "higher"  critical  school  now,  however, 
generally  ascribe  the  book  to  two  authors,  the  historic 
Isaiah,  and  a  "pseudo"  or  "  deutero  " — a  "great  un- 
known "  Isaiah,  who  is  the  supposed  author  of  chaps.  40-66. 

Three  lines  of  argument  are  chiefly  urged  in  support  of 
the  theory  of  a  plurality  of  authors:  (1)  The  internal  evi- 

1  Moulton  divides  the  prophecies  into  seven  books  or  parts. 


164  PROPHECY    AND    PROPHETICAL    BOOKS. 

dence,  which,  it  is  claimed,  points  to  a  later  period  for  the 
latter  half  of  the  book  than  the  age  of  Isaiah,  such  as  allu- 
sions to  Jerusalem  in  ruins,  the  prospect  of  speedy  restora- 
tion, the  references  to  exiles,  the  mention  of  Cyrus  and  of 
the  Chaldseans  as  if  contemporaries  of  the  writer;  (2) 
The  differences  of  literary  style  between  the  first  and  the 
second  part  of  the  book,  based  chiefly  on  special  words, 
expressions  and  certain  linguistic  peculiarities ;  (3)  The 
differences  in  thought,  in  the  conception  of  Jehovah  and  of 
his  relation  to  Israel,  especially  the  idea  of  a  Messianic  King.1 

The  unity  of  the  authorship  is  maintained  (1)  negatively  on 
the  ground  that  the  foregoing  lines  of  argument  for  a  plu- 
rality of  authors  are  inconclusive.  Those  strongly  favor  a 
plurality  theory  who  seek  to  explain  away  miracles  and  the 
supernatural,  and  aim  to  eliminate  predictive  prophecy 
from  Scripture.  This  creates  a  suspicion  that  in  some  cases 
arguments  are  sought,  perhaps  unconsciously,  or  are  warped 
to  support  a  preconceived  theory.  But  some  "higher 
critics"  concede  that  even  the  last  part  of  Isaiah,  40-66, 
was  written  prior  to  the  events  which  it  describes.2  This 
admission,  however,  weakens,  if  it  does  not  virtually  de- 
stroy, the  force  of  their  first  line  of  argument  (internal 
evidence)  in  support  of  the  theory  of  plurality  of  authors. 

To  assume  that  Isaiah  could  not  name  Cyrus  because 
prophets  did  not  usually  "  project  themselves  into  a  distant 
future7'  is  not  only  "begging  the  question,"  but  is  an 
assumption  without  due  warrant.  It  amounts  to  assuming 
that  Isaiah  did  not  or  could  not  write  prophecy  which 
would  turn  out  true  history,  and  leads  to  a  logical  denial 

1  See  S.  R.  Driver's  Introduction  to  Literature  of  the  O.  T.,  pp. 
223  ff;  Delitzsch,  Commentary,  4th  ed. ;  G.  A.  Smith,  Isaia h  (Ex- 
positor's Bible);   C.A.  Briggs,  Messianic  Prophecy. 

2  See  Driver,  Introduction,  etc.,  p.  230. 


PROPHECY    AND    PROPHETICAL    BOOKS.  165 

of  all  prophecy.  Again,  the  argument,  from  the  differences 
in  style  and  from  the  linguistic  peculiarities,  has  been  shown 
to  be  illusive,  if  not  delusive.  For  a  same  line  of  argument 
from  the  similarities  of  style  has  been  used  to  disprove 
plurality  and  to  support  a  unity  of  authorship.  And  the 
third  line  of  argument  for  "  two  Isaiahs  "  has  been  seriously 
weakened  by  an  increasing  agreement  among  scholars,  that 
the  Messianic  idea  runs  through  the  entire  book  (for  ex- 
ample, see  chap.  2),  and  indicates  that  this  conception  was 
then  current  among  the  Jewish  people. 

The  unity  of  authorship  is  urged  (2)  positively,  on  the 
ground — 

(1)  Of  the  external  evidence,  which  uniformly  has  de- 
clared Isaiah  to  be  the  author  (see  Ecclus.  48  :  24,  25).  As  we 
have  seen,  Josephus  ascribes  the  book  to  that  prophet 
only.  The  many  citations  in  the  New  Testament  imply 
the  same,  and  give  no  hint  of  the  "great  unknown" 
prophet  conjectured  by  modern  critics.  Hence  tradition 
and  historic  testimony  agree  in  support  of  the  unity  of 
authorship.  The  Jewish  historians  were  not  dishonest, 
and  it  is  almost  inconceivable  that  a  batch  of  poems  by  a 
wholly  unknown  writer  could  have  been  passed  off  as  those 
of  the  great  Isaiah,  almost  within  200  years  of  the  latter's 
lifetime. 

(2)  The  literary  style  and  a  large  portion  of  the  lin- 
guistic peculiarities  favor  the  view  of  one  author,  as  recent 
critics  have  ably  shown.  For  example,  the  writer  of  the 
second  half  of  the  book  uses  words  the  meaning  of  which 
was  partially  lost  by  Jeremiah's  time.  And  he  possesses  a 
familiarity  with  a  vocabulary  the  mastery  of  which  the 
writer  of  the  first  half  alone  shares  with  him.1 

1  See  Margoliotith,  Lines  of  Defence  of  the  Bibical  Revetation, 
p.  i36- 


166       PROPHECY  AND  PROPHETICAL  BOOKS. 

(3)  The  geographical  matter  and  allusions  in  40-66  fit 
an  earlier  period  than  that  of  the  exile,  and  the  idolatrous 
practices  rebuked  in  the  last  half  of  Isaiah  cannot  be  at- 
tributed to  Israel  during  or  after  the  exile  without  grave 
anachronisms. 

(4)  Again,  the  prophecy  even  in  40-66  has  been  found 
to  present  a  situation  unlike  that  in  the  time  of  Cyrus,  and 
not  different  from  that  in  the  time  of  Isaiah,  the  son  of 
Amoz.  For  Jerusalem  and  the  cities  around  her  are  con- 
ceived as  standing,  her  exiles  as  in  prisons.  The  theory 
of  two  authors  for  Isaiah  fails  to  fit  these  facts.1 

(5)  Moreover,  passages  in  the  so-called  "  second  Isaiah," 
declaring  that  he  had  foretold  events,  occur  early  in  the 
second  half  of  the  book.  Compare  also  the  similarity  of 
Isa.  35  :  10  with  59  :  20  and  many  like  passages  in  the  two 
parts.  Rationally  to  account  for  this,  it  is  held  either 
that  the  first  Isaiah  wrote  the  work  ascribed  to  the  second, 
or  the  second  Isaiah  wrote  the  work  ascribed  to  the  first.2 

The  first  view  is  the  most  natural  one.  For  it  is  almost 
incredible  that  an  author  so  eminent  as  the  conjectured 
"great  unknown"  or  "deutero  Isaiah"  could  have  been 
so  utterly  forgotten  within  about  200  years  of  his  age 
as  to  allow  his  name  to  pass  into  oblivion,  and  his  monu- 
mental work  to  be  ascribed  to  another  prophet  four  or  five 
generations  earlier,  and  more  marvellous  still  to  be  patched 
or  pieced  into  the  current  well  accredited  work  of  the 
historic  Isaiah.  The  theory  of  "two  Isaiahs"  makes  too 
large  demands  upon  credulity  to  be  regarded  as  conclusive. 
The  situation  may  be  briefly  stated  as  follows :  The  tide  of 

1  See  W.  J.  Beecher  in  Nelson's  Illustrated  Bible  Treasury,  p.  97. 

2  Margoliouth,  Lines  of  Defence,  etc.,  pp.  89,  90  ff ;  Hastings,  Diet, 
of  the  Bible,  Isaiah,  which  declares  that  if  40-66  is  exilic,  part  of  I-39 
musi  also  fall  into  the  same  date,  Vol.  II.,  p.  487". 


PROPHECY  AND  PROPHETICAL  BOOKS.        167 

Hebrew  scholarship  ran  in  favor  of  two  or  more  authors  for 
the  book  of  Isaiah  during  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  but  with  decided  indications  of  a  turn  in  favor  of 
one  author,  and  the  historic  view  of  the  unity  of  the  book 
at  the  opening  of  the  twentieth  century.  Whether  this  be 
conceded  or  not,  it  is  certain  the  question  of  the  author- 
ship of  the  book  of  Isaiah  is  "open"  and  unsettled;  the 
historic  view  of  unity  in  authorship  and  that  by  Isaiah 
gaining  in  strength. 

The  book  rests  for  its  divine  authority  upon  grounds 
quite  independent  of  the  dispute  about  its  authorship.  It 
was  held  in  reverence  by  Christ  and  the  apostles,  and  has 
been  so  held,  a  comfort  and  a  blessing  to  believing  children 
of  God  for  more  than  two  thousand  years,  ever  responding 
to  their  souls  and  revealing  to  their  hearts  the  mind  of  God. 
Thus  the  internal  evidence,  to  generations  of  the  godly 
combines  with  the  external  historic  evidences  to  establish 
its  divine  authority. 

The  date  and  the  place  of  composition  hinge  on  the 
question  of  authorship.  If  the  historic  testimony  that  Isaiah 
is  the  author  is  accepted,  the  date  may  be  placed  about 
740-690  b.  c,  and  the  place  of  composition  mainly  Jeru- 
salem. 

6.  Jeremiah — Structure  and  Contents. — The  book  of 
Jeremiah  in  its  literary  structure  is  not  sharply  marked  into 
divisions.  Some  scholars  hold  that  it  is  a  collection  of 
prophecies  in  five  parts;  others  split  it  into  ten  "books" 
or  sections.  In  five  parts  it  is  noted  that  the  first  contains 
six  discourses,  chaps.  1-20,  each  of  the  last  three  begin- 
ning with  "  The  word  that  came  to  Jeremiah  from  the 
Lord."  n:  1;  14:1;  18:1.  A  similar  attestation  is 
given  nine  times  in  the  first  three  chapters,  and  many  times 


168       PROPHECY  AND  PROPHETICAL  BOOKS. 

throughout  the  entire  book.  The  second  part  has  fifteen 
discourses  or  prophecies,  chaps.  21-36,  every  chapter  con- 
taining a  "Thus  saith  the  Lord,"  or  a  similar  attestation 
of  divine  authority.  The  third  part  is  an  historical  narra- 
tive, that  may  have  been  recorded  by  Baruch  at  the  dicta- 
tion of  Jeremiah  (see  Jer.  36:  44).  The  fourth  part  con- 
sists of  elegies  or  doom  songs  over  Egypt,  Philistia,  Moab, 
Ammon,  Edom,  Damascus,  Kedar,  Elam  and  Babylon. 
The  fifth  part  gives  details  on  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  which 
some  regard  as  an  appendix  to  the  book  by  another  author. 

The  style  is  simple  and  rugged.  An  evangelical  and 
Messianic  prophet,  Jeremiah  is  a  bold  preacher  of  right- 
eousness to  a  sinning  people.  Some  have  likened  him  to 
Dante  proclaiming  coming  judgments,  and  to  the  Trojan 
Cassandra.  He  is  the  poet  of  desolation  and  sorrow,  "  the 
weeping  prophet,"  but  also  of  restoration,  brightening  the 
general  blackness  of  the  storm.  Portions  of  the  book  were 
intended  to  instruct  and  comfort  the  Jewish  captives  at 
Babylon,  and  other  portions  were  warnings  to  the  nations, 
and  thus  indirectly  inspiring  hope  in  Israel. 

Later  critics  have  found  resemblances  in  thought  and  in 
literary  expressions  to  those  in  the  book  of  Deuteronomy, 
and  infer  that  the  prophet  was  a  careful  student  of  that 
book.  His  themes,  aside  from  those  already  mentioned,  were 
the  unfailing  covenant  of  Jehovah,  the  Messianic  hope,  the 
promise  of  return  from  exile,  a  prophecy  which  led  to  their 
return  (see  2  Chron.  36:  22  ;  Ezra.  1  :  1,  with  Dan.  9  :  2). 

The  author  was  Jeremiah,  the  son  of  Hilkiah,  priest  of 
Anathoth,  a  little  town  a  few  miles  north  of  Jerusalem. 
He  dictated  portions  of  the  book  to  Baruch,  a  scribe,  who 
wrote  them  out.  Jer.  36:  4;  45  :  1.  The  prophecies  ex- 
tended over  about  forty  years,  and  were  proclaimed  in  the 


PROPHECY    AND    PROPHETICAL    BOOKS.  169 

kingdom  of  Judah  in  the  period  from  Josiah  to  Zedekiah, 
about  625-586  b.  c. 

7.  Ezekiel. —  The  name  means  "  God  strengthens." 
Conte?its  and  structure.  The  book  is  a  collection  of  mys- 
terious visions,  discourses,  parables  and  elegies  or  doom 
poems.  Jerome  called  it  "an  ocean  and  labyrinth  of  the 
mysteries  of  God."  Its  mysterious  character  caused  the 
Jews  to  declare  that  no  one  should  read  it  until  thirty  years 
of  age.  The  prophecies  are  sometimes  dated,  but  are  not 
now  arranged  in  chronological  order.  Some  divide  it  into 
three  parts  (Driver,  Davidson,  and  Moulton) — (i)  on  the 
fall  of  Jerusalem,  chaps.  1-24;  (2)  on  the  nations,  chaps. 
25-32 ;  (3)  on  the  restoration  of  Israel,  chaps.  33-48. 
Each  of  these  parts  is  divisible  into  short  prophecies,  dis- 
courses, visions,  or  poems,  with  a  general  thought  or  unity 
looking  to  the  restoration  of  Israel. 

The  exposition  or  interpretation  is  confessedly  difficult. 
The  methods  of  interpretation  applied  to  Ezekiel  may  be 
placed  in  four  groups:  (1)  The  allegorical,  varying,  hazy 
often  and  tending  to  doubtful  results;  (2)  the  historical, 
also  varying  and  perilous ;  (3)  the  symbolical,  fairly  safe 
when  carefully  guarded  by  proper  qualifications ;  (4)  the 
typical,  a  safer  method,  yet  requiring  the  insight  of  a  seer 
and  the  reverent  spirit  of  a  saint. 

The  author. — Ezekiel  was  of  a  priestly  family  and  a 
prophet  of  the  exile,  living  in  mature  life  a  captive  at 
Tel-Abib  on  the  banks  of  Chebar,  probably  an  artificial 
stream,  or  royal  canal,  connecting  the  Euphrates  with  the 
Tigris  north  of  Babylon.  It  is  generally  conceded  that 
he  recorded  his  prophecies  soon  after  they  were  spoken, 
though  there  is  a  Jewish  tradition  that  they  with  other 
books  were  written  by  men  of  the  Jewish  synagogue.     But 


170  PROPHECY    AND    PROPHETICAL    BOOKS. 

this  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  Ezekiel  himself  was 
doubtless  one  of  the  men  of  the  Great  Synagogue.  His 
style  is  often  diffuse,  abounding  in  allegory,  symbol,  and 
apocalyptic  figures. 

8.  Daniel. — In  the  Hebrew  Bible  the  book  of  Daniel  is 
not  among  the  books  of  prophecy,  but  in  the  third  division, 
called  K'thubhim,  at  the  head  of  which  was  the  book  of 
Psalms. 

Structure  and  Language. — In  structure  it  is  complex, 
partly  history  and  partly  prophecy.  This  may  account  for 
its  position  in  the  Hebrew  Bible.  Chapters  2 :  4  to  7  are 
in  Aramaic  ;  the  other  portions  in  Hebrew.  The  intro- 
duction and  the  Aramaic  portion  are  written  in  the  third 
person.  This  may  be  accounted  for  by  difference  of  the 
matter;  the  former  is  chiefly  history,  the  latter  visions. 
The  Aramaic  in  Daniel  resembles  closely  the  Aramaic  of 
Ezra.  Some  hold  that  it  is  distinctly  a  western  Aramaic 
dialect,  due  to  a  later  period.  But  the  close  resemblance 
to  the  dialect  of  Ezra  throws  doubt  on  this  opinion.  The 
view  that  the  Jews  forgot  their  Hebrew  in  Babylon  and 
spoke  ''Aramaic"  on  their  return  to  Palestine  is  now  dis- 
proved. The  Aramaic  dialect  was  in  upper  Syria  long 
before  and  gradually  won  the  field.  This  dialect  in  the 
Bible  is  not  strictly  "  Chaldaic." 

The  conietits  may  be  divided  into  two  parts:  (1)  A  narra- 
tive of  the  life  of  Daniel  and  his  friends  while  captives  in 
Babylon,  chaps.  1-6 ;  (2)  four  prophetic  or  apocalyptic 
visions,  chaps.  7-12,  namely,  of  four  beasts,  of  the  ram 
and  he-goat,  of  the  period  of  restoration,  and  of  the  time  of 
the  end. 

9.  Authorship. — The  visions  in  the  text  are  declared  to 
have  been  spoken  by  Daniel.   The  author  of  the  narrative  por- 


PROPHECY  AND  PROPHETICAL  HOOKS.       171 

tion  is  not  stated  in  the  book  itself.  Historic  testimonyand 
tradition  ascribe  the  entire  book,  however,  to  the  prophet 
Daniel.  Some  modern  critics  declare  that  this  view  cannot 
be  sustained,  and  hold  that  it  was  written  by  an  author  of  a 
later  age,  between  300  and  168  b.  c.  The  chief  arguments 
urged  for  their  view  are:  (1)  The  position  of  the  book  in 
Hebrew  Scriptures  (it  is  not  placed  with  the  prophets); 
(2)  the  silence  of  the  son  of  Sirach  (200  b.  c),  who  men- 
tions Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel  and  minor  prophets,  but 
not  Daniel ;  (3)  the  date  of  the  siege  of  Jerusalem,  the 
making  the  Chaldaeans  of  the  caste  of  wise  men,  the  calling 
Belshazzar  King,  and  Darius,  a  Mede,  a  ruler  in  Babylon, 
and  the  mention  of  "  the  books"  as  if  a  collection  or 
canon,  are  claimed  to  point  to  a  later  writer ;  (4)  the 
language — Persian  and  Greek  words  and  the  dialect  of 
Aramaic — are  held  also  to  point  to  a  later  date ;  and 
finally  (5)  the  theology  of  the  book  is  claimed  to  be  that 
of  a  later  period  than  the  exile. 

These  arguments,  on  the  other  hand,  are  held  to  be  in- 
conclusive by  many  critics  for  the  following  among  other 
reasons:  (1)  The  position  of  the  book  of  Daniel  in  the 
Hebrew  Bible  shows  a  truer  insight  into  its  character  than 
has  prevailed  in  later  times.  The  book  differs  from  all 
prophetic  books  except  Jonah  ;  it  is  not  homiletic,  as  are 
the  prophetic  books,  nor  is  it  altogether  "prophetic"  in 
the  modern  sense;  that  is  prediction.  Hence  it  is  not 
strange  that  it  should  be  placed  by  the  Jews  with  the  books 
of  the  Hagiographa,  for  they  are  surely  held  to  be  of  pro- 
phetic authorship.  (2)  The  argument  from  silence  is 
worthless,  for  the  son  of  Sirach  is  silent  also  concerning 
Ezra,  though  he  lauds  Nehemiah.  Yet  it  would  be  absurd 
to  infer  therefrom  that  Ezra  was  unknown  to  him.     But,  in 


172       PROPHPCY  AND  PROPHETICAL  BOOKS. 

fact,  it  has  lately  been  proved  that  the  son  of  Sirach  quotes 
from  the  book  of  Daniel  and  from  both  parts  of  it.1  This 
proves  that  the  book  of  Daniel  must  have  been  written 
before  Ecclesiasticus.  (3)  All  the  inferences  from  the 
historic  allusions  are  conceded  to  be  inconclusive  and 
weak.2 

In  fact,  most  of  them  or  similar  facts  can  be  turned  to 
sustain  the  historic  view,  that  the  book  belongs  to  the  ex- 
ilic period,  and  may  therefore  have  been  written  by  Daniel. 
The  book  fits  his  age,  and  presents  facts  that  he  was  in  a 
position  to  know,  as  few  others  were.  (4)  The  linguistic 
arguments  are  weak,  if  not  delusive,  being  based  on  a  mere 
opinion.  (5)  The  fifth  argument  (from  the  theological 
ideas)  for  a  late  author  is  greatly  exaggerated,  and  with 
sober  minds  has  no  independent  weight. 

The  traditional  view  that  it  is  mainly  by  Daniel  is  posi- 
tively maintained  on  the  grounds ;  (1)  of  the  historic  testi- 
mony before  mentioned  ;  (2)  of  the  utter  improbability 
that  the  Hebrews  would  place  a  late  work  which  was  a 
forgery  among  their  sacred  Scriptures.  For,  if  this  book 
of  Daniel  was  written  near  200  b.  c,  it  must  have  been  by 
a  writer  who  assumed  to  write  in  Daniel's  name.  See  Dan. 
8  :  1,  15,  27  ;  9  :  2  ;  10  :  2  \  12:5.  It  is  incredible  that  such 
a  forged  work,  could  be  passed  off,  in  that  age,  as  genuine ; 
for,  in  that  era  the  Hebrew  collection  of  Scriptures  was 
completed.  (3)  Modern  discoveries  have  steadily  strength- 
ened the  former  evidences  for  an  early  rather  than  a  late 
date.  Belshazzar  has  been  identified  as  historic,  the  capture 
of  Babylon  was  by  stratagem  rather  than  battles,  the  old 
gods  and   religion  of  Babylon,  were    not  destroyed  by  the 

1  See  Margoliouth,  Lines  of  Defence  of  the  Biblical  Revelation, 
pp.  181  and  182. 

2  See  Driver,  Introduction,  p.  469. 


PROPHECY  AM)  PROPHETICAL  BOOKS.         173 

conqueror  (all  inferred  in  Daniel).  Darius  the  Mede  has  not 
been  identified,  but  so  many  of  the  persons  in  Daniel  have 
been  confirmed  as  historic  that  it  is  safe  to  infer  the  others 
will  be,  in  time.  (4)  Daniel  and  Ezra  both  wrote  partly  in 
Aramaic,  but  Nehemiah  insisted  that  the  Jews  should  speak 
Hebrew.  The  son  of  Sirach  may  have  omitted  both  these 
heroes  from  Ecclesiasticus,  because  they  did  not  use  pure 
Hebrew.  They  were  not  unknown  to  him,  for,  as  has 
already  been  shown,  he  quotes  from  Daniel.  Aramaic  had 
long  been  used  in  diplomatic  business.  See  2  Kings  18  :  26. 
And  both  languages  were  spoken  by  many  Israelites  in  the 
time  of  Daniel.  Why  should  he  not  naturally  use  both 
dialects?  It  is  needless  to  conceive  of  a  later  writer  to  ex- 
plain this  circumstance.  And  the  use  of  a  few  stray  Greek 
and  Persian  terms  only  proves  what  might  be  inferred,  that 
these  were  current  in  the  exilic  period,  since  Nebuchad- 
nezzar had  brought  captives  from  Lydia  and  Egypt,  and 
Medes  and  Elamites  were  neighbors.  (5)  The  Hebrews 
counted  a  part  of  the  book  predictive.  Those  who  believe 
that  prophets  did  not  predict  future  events  will  prefer  to 
think  the  book  was  by  an  author  in  the  Maccabaean  era. 

The  question  is  unsettled,  and,  in  view  of  the  increasing 
light  from  explorations  and  scholarly  investigations,  it  is 
comparatively  easy  calmly  to  await  further  light. 

10.  The  Minor  Prophets. — In  modern  Bibles  these  are 
counted  twelve  separate  books,  but  in  the  Hebrew  Bible  the 
twelve  are  counted  as  one  book.  The  Hebrew  order  is  the 
same  as  in  modern  Bibles,  but  the  order  in  the  Septuagint 
or  Greek  Version  is,  Hosea,  Amos,  Micah,  Joel,  Obadiah, 
Jonah,  Nahum,  Habakkuk,  Zephaniah,  Haggai,  Zechariah, 
Malachi.  Some  of  the  earliest  and  of  the  latest  prophetic 
books  are  among  the    minor  prophets.     They  also  exhibit 


174        PROPHECY  AND  PROPHETICAL  BOOKS. 

a  wide  diversity  af  style,  thought,  structure  and  illustration. 
Here  are  the  uncultured  herdsman  Amos,  the  passionate, 
erratic  Jonah,  the  impassioned  Zephaniah,  the  polished 
poetical  ode  of  Habakkuk,  and  the  didactic  discourses  of 
Malachi.  The  variety  and  richness  of  Hebrew  prophetic 
literature  are  well  illustrated  in  the  Minor  Prophets. 

ii.  Hosea. — The  last  great  prophet  of  Israel,  the  north- 
ern kingdom,  was  Hosea,  his  name  meaning  ''salvation." 
His  prophetic  mission  covered  from  fifty  to  seventy  years 
from  the  reign  of  Jeroboam  II.  on  towards  the  fall  of 
Samaria,  786-722  b.  c. 

The  book  may  be  divided  into  two  parts :  (1)  Israel's 
unfaithfulness  under  the  figure  of  Gomer,  chaps.  1-3.  (2) 
Prophetic  discourses;  the  Lord's  controversey  with  his 
people,  chaps.  4-14.  The  last  part  is  broken  into  numerous 
short  prophecies,  the  record  probably  giving  barely  abstracts 
of  extended  spoken  teachings.  Their  interpretation  is  con- 
fessedly difficult.  Some  interpret  the  first  part  literally, 
that  the  prophet  actually  married  a  profligate  woman;  others 
hold  that  it  is  a  vision,  and  yet  others  that  he  typically  sets 
forth  the  relation  of  Israel  to  Jehovah  by  the  wife  unfaithful 
to  her  husband.  The  second  part  is  subdivided  into  sev- 
eral sections,  chiefly  depicting  Israel's  sins  and  punishment, 
and  closing  with  a  call  to  repentance.  The  style  is  senten- 
tious, concise,  abrupt,  and  hence  sometimes  obscure. 
Stanley  calls  him  the  Jeremiah  of  the  northern  kingdom. 
But  he  was  earlier  and  contemporary  with  Amos,  Jonah 
and  perhaps  Joel.  This  prophecy  is  often  cited  in  the  New 
Testament.    Matt.  2:15;  9:13;   12:7;  Rom.  9  :  25,  26. 

12.  Joel. — This  prophecy  declares  God's  judgments  of 
locusts,  caterpillars  and  the  like,  and  the  blessings  to  God's 
people.     It   is  in   two  parts:  (r)  The  visitation,  chaps.  1 


PROPHECY    AND    PROPHETICAL    BOOKS.  175 

to  2:  17;  (2)  The  repentance  and  blessings,  chap.  2:  18 
to  3  :  21.  The  style  is  pure  Hebrew,  easy,  flowing,  elegant 
and  classical,  with  bold,  sublime  imagery,  vivid  description, 
bearing  the  impress  of  high  culture.  All  these  point  to  an 
early  date  in  the  monarchy.  Peter  cites  the  prediction  of 
Joel,  and  points  to  its  fulfilment  in  the  gift  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  at  Pentecost.  See  Acts  2  :  16-21  and  Joel  2  :  28-32. 
Some  place  the  date  about  770  b.  c.  and  just  before  Amos 
and  Hosea. 

13.  Amos. — The  prophecy  of  Amos  was  also  chiefly  one 
of  judgments.  His  themes  were  righteousness  and  the 
certainty  of  punishment  upon  sin  and  immoralty.  The 
book  may  be  said  to  have  three  parts:  (1)  Retribution  on 
the  nations,  chaps.  1,2;  (2)  Israel  not  to  escape,  chaps. 
3-6;  (3)  Visions  and  a  historical  explanation,  chaps.  7-9. 
His  prophecy  has  been  called  a  Hebrew  manual  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  social  reform. 

Amos  was  a  shepherd  and  grower  of  sycamore  trees  at 
Tekoa,  a  few  miles  south  of  Jerusalem.  He  was  not  of  the 
line  of  professional  prophets,  and  had  not  been  trained  at 
their  schools,  but  he  was  distinctly  called  of  Jehovah  to  be 
a  prophet.   Amos  7:  14,  15. 

His  style  is  bold,  fearless,  as  a  stern  reformer,  homely, 
rugged,  direct,  and  remarkable  for  vigor  and  effectiveness. 
Thus  it  is  in  strong  contrast  with  that  of  Joel  and  the 
sweeping  rhapsodies  of  Isaiah.  There  is  simplicity  mingled 
with  sublimity,  and  an  imagery  fragrant  of  the  pasture,  the 
flocks,  and  flowering  fruit  trees.  He  is  pre-eminently  the 
prophet  of  the  common  people. 

The  dates  of  the  prophecies  are  probably  near  that  of  Joel 
and  Hosea,  in  the  eighth  century,  B.  c. 

14.  Obadiah. — This  short  book  has  been  called  a  ''doom 


176      PROPHECY  AND  PROPHETICAL  BOOKS. 

prophecy"  over  Edom,  and  in  two  parts  :  (i)  Edom  doomed 
in  spite  of  its  fastnesses;  (2)  due  to  cruelty  to  Israel.  This 
the  smallest  of  the  prophetic  books  reminds  the  reader  of 
the  old  feud  between  Jacob  and  Esau.  The  sweeping 
declaration  of  judgment  against  Edom  for  its  unnatural 
conduct  toward  Judah  in  its  day  of  misfortune  is  plain  and 
energetic  in  style.  The  date  is  uncertain.  It  turns  on  vs. 
11-14.  Some  place  it  in  889-884  b.  c.  ;  others  606-588 
b.  c.  or  later.  There  is  a  strong  resemblance  in  this  book 
to  Jer.  49  :  7-21,  where  there  is  a  similar  prophecy  against 
Edom. 

15.  Jonah. — This  book  has  been  termed  a  "prophetic 
epic  "  (Moulton).  It  is  in  four  parts,  corresponding  nearly 
to  the  four  chapters  :  (1)  the  call  and  rebellion  of  the 
prophet ;  (2)  ode  or  psalm  of  deliverance  ;  (3)  preaching  to 
and  repentance  of  Ninevites ;  (4)  anger  of  the  prophet. 

Its  literary  form  and  contents  are  wholly  different  from 
other  prophetic  books,  making  it  surprising  that  it  was  not 
among  the  Hagiographa,  or  third  division  of  the  Hebrew 
Bible  with  Daniel,  rather  than  among  the  prophets. 

The  authorship  and  date  of  the  book  are  sharply  dis- 
cussed, with  few  signs  that  the  question  will  soon  be  settled. 
It  is  alleged  that  it  must  have  been  written  long  after  the 
lifetime  of  Jonah,  because  (1)  of  the  language,  showing 
Aramaisms ;  (2)  the  song  or  Psalm  in  chap.  2  reflects  the 
sentiment  of  many  other  Psalms  supposed  to  be  of  later 
origin  than  the  prophet ;  (3)  of  a  similar  reflection  of  the 
teaching  of  the  great  prophets,  also  later  than  Jonah  ;  (4) 
the  absence  of  the  name  of  any  king  of  Nineveh.  A  careful 
sifting  of  these  arguments  reveals  weakness  and  haziness. 

Jonah  was  a  real  prophet  of  Gath-hepher,  a  town  of 
northern  Palestine  between  Nazareth  and  Tiberias.     The 


PROPHECY  AM)  PROPHETICAL  BOOKS.        177 

book  is  a  simple,  natural  and  graphic  story,  bearing  the 
marks  of  true  history,  unless  the  reader  discards  miracles. 
The  miracle  of  the  "great  fish  "  (it  does  not  say  "  whale  ") 
has  been  made  the  butt  of  ridicule  by  skeptics  since  the 
days  of  Julian  the  Apostate.  As  a  type  of  Christ,  the 
narrative  of  Jonah  must  include  the  miracle  of  the  fish,  for 
Christ  himself  points  to  it  as  such  a  type.  Matt.  12:  39-41; 
Luke  11  :  29-32.     The  book  reads  like  history. 

Those  who  hold  that  all  records  of  the  supernatural  in 
Scripture  are  unhistoric  naturally  hold  that  the  book  of 
Jonah  is  a  moral  fiction,  possibly  having  some  historic 
basis.  It  is  counted  a  "beautiful  poem,"  teaching  the 
tenderness  of  Jehovah  towards  the  heathen,  contrasted  with 
the  imperfect  conception  of  some  Hebrew  prophets.  No 
one  disputes  that  Jonah  was  an  historical  person  and 
prophet  of  Jehovah. 

16.  Micah. — This  is  generally  regarded  as  a  Messianic 
prophecy,  but  variously  divided  into  two  parts  (Driver  and 
Moulton),  or  three  parts  (Davidson),  or  four  parts  (Mc- 
Curdy).  The  more  simple  grouping  into  two  parts  is:  (i) 
Miscellaneous  prophecies,  chaps.  1-5  ;  (2)  dramatic  proph- 
ecies, chaps.  6,  7. 

He  was  of  Gath,  on  the  Mediterranean  plain,  and  a  con- 
temporary of  Isaiah.  His  style  is  varied,  generally  smooth 
and  artistic,  often  bold  and  energetic,  and  sometimes  ab- 
rupt and  vehement.  He  abounds  in  images  and  figures 
and  in  sudden  transitions,  making  it  difficult  to  follow  him. 
As  a  Messianic  prophet  his  predictions  are  caught  up  and 
echoed  in  the  song  of  Zacharias  (Luke  1  :  72,  73),  and  by 
the  priests  of  Jerusalem.  Matt.  2:5,6.  The  authorship  of 
the  prophecy  has  been  disputed.  It  is  asserted  that  only  a 
part  of  the  book  can  be  from  Micah,  owing  to  the  diverse 


178  PROPHECY  AND    PROPHETICAL    BOOKS. 

character  and  style  of  portions.  Then  it  is  assumed  that 
one  portion,  in  chaps.  6  and  7,  states  matters  in  prospect, 
which  in  another  portion,  7  :  7  ff,  have  actually  passed  (see 
Hastings'  Diet,  of  Bible,  Micah).  But  what  if  the  first  be 
predictive?  The  assertions  and  arguments  are  insufficient, 
seriously  to  weaken  the  historical  view. 

17.  Nahum  contains  an  alphabetic  poem  and  a  prophecy 
of  the  doom  of  Nineveh.  It  opens  with  a  vivid  and  sub- 
lime picture  of  the  power  and  majesty  of  Jehovah.  With 
marvellous  vigor,  dignity  and  sublimity  of  language  he  then 
depicts  the  downfall  and  miserable  ruin  of  Nineveh.  Next 
to  Isaiah,  Nahum  is  the  richest  in  poetic  imagery,  in  vivid 
picturesque  force  and  dignity  of  all  the  Hebrew  prophets. 

Little  is  known  of  the  prophet.  He  was  probably  of 
Elkosh,  in  Galilee,  though  there  is  a  place  near  Mosul 
opposite  Nineveh,  now  shown  as  Elkush,  but  the  tradition 
is  of  the  sixteenth  century  of  our  era.  The  date  of  the 
prophecy  is  probably  somewhere  between  660  and  606  b.  c. 

18.  Habakkuk. — The  theme  of  this  prophecy  is  the 
overthrow  of  Judaea  by  the  Chald?eans,  and  the  overthrow 
of  the  Chaldaeans,  closing  with  a  magnificent  prayer-ode 
on  the  majesty  of  Jehovah.  His  style  is  strong,  beautiful, 
with  artistic  and  descriptive  power  "that  enlivens  and 
adorns  everything  with  charming  effect"  (Evvald).  Little 
is  known  of  the  prophet-author,  except  that  he  was  a  Levite. 
His  sublime  prayer-song,  chap.  3,  Lowth  calls  "an  anthem 
unequalled  in  majesty  and  splendor  of  language  and  im- 
agery." 

From  this  book  Paul  cites  the  famous  text  "  the  just  shall 
live  by  his  faith"  (Hab.  2:4;  Rom.  1  :  17),  which  was 
caught  up  by  Luther  and  became  the  ringing  watchword  of 
the  great  Reformation.     The  date  of  the  prophecy  is  an- 


PROPHECY    AND    PROPHETICAL    ROOKS.  171* 

certain,    some  placing  it    about   600   e.   c,   others   much 
earlier. 

19.  Zephaniah. —  This  prophecy  has  been  called  a 
"rhapsodic  discourse  "  and  divided  into  three  parts:  (1) 
The  menace,  chap.  1  ;  (2)  admonition,  chap.  2-3:7;  (3) 
promise,  chap.  3:  8-20,  and  is  declared  to  have  been 
uttered  during  the  reign  of  Josiah,  640-608  B.  c. 

The  book  has  been  termed  the  great  judgment  hymn. 
That  marvellous  description  beginning  "The  great  day  of 
Jehovah  is  near,  .  .  .  That  day  ...  of  wrath"  (Zeph. 
1 :  14,  15),  furnished  the  keynote  to  that  sublime  Latin 
hymn  ascribed  to  Thomas  of  Celano  (1250),  Dies  irce,  dies 
ilia,  esteemed  the  grandest  hymn  of  the  Middle  Ages — a 
hymn  more  frequently  translated  than  any  other,  yet  never 
equalled,  and  which  brings  before  us,  with  thrilling  power, 
the  final  judgment  as  an  awful  impending  reality. 

20.  Haggai. — A  prophecy  to  instruct  and  encourage  the 
returned  exiles,  mfour  sections  or  mixed  prose  and  poetical 
discourses,  each  being  carefully  dated.  The  first  relates  to 
the  rebuilding  of  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  1  :  1-15  ;  the 
second  to  the  glory  of  the  temple,  2  :  1-9  ;  the  third  to 
clean  and  unclean  offerings,  2  :  10-19,  and  the  fourth  to 
Zerubbabel's  triumph  over  heathen  people.  The  date  of 
the  first  prophecy  is  about  520  B.  c.  The  allusion  to  "  the 
desire  of  all  nations,"  or  "the  desirable  things  of  all 
nations"  (2:  7),  is  understood  to  apply  to  Christ  and  his 
kingdom.  His  style  is  simple,  direct,  practical,  with  some 
poetical  imagination,  shaping  his  thoughts  sometimes  into 
the  parallelisms  of  Hebrew  poetry. 

21.  Zechariah — Contents. — A  prophecy  of  the  restora- 
tion era,  variously  divided  into  two  parts  (Davidson, 
McCurdy,)    into    three   books    (Moulton),    and    into  Jive 


180  PROPHECV    AND    PROPHETICAL    BOOKS. 

prophecies    (Driver).     The    two  parts  are :  (a)  Visions  of 
symbols  presenting  the  future  of  God's  people,  chaps.  1-8. 
There  are  eight  visions :  (i)  Man  on  a  red  horse  ;  (2)  four 
horses ;  (3)  Man  with  a  measuring  line  ;  (4)  high  priest  and 
Satan  ;  (5)  the  lampstand  and  two  olive  trees ;  (6)  a  flying 
roll ;  (7)  the  ephah  and  two  women  ;  (8)  four  chariots  and 
horses,  black,  white,  grisled  and  bay,  followed  by  a  descrip- 
tion   (in  chapters  7,   8)  of  the  restoration   of  Jerusalem. 
{£)  Prophetic  discourses— (1)   the  king  of  Zion,  chap.  9; 
(2)  false  shepherds,  10:  1-12;  (3)  slaughtered  flocks,  11: 
1-17;  (4)  a  fountain  for  Jerusalem,  12:  1-13  ;  (5)  visions 
of  a  sword  and  calamities,  followed  by  a  reign  of  holiness. 
Author. — The   first   part   is  ascribed   to  and  universally 
conceded  to  be  by  Zechariah.    The  authorship  of  the  second 
part  is  disputed.     Some  have  held  that  it  was  by  Jeremiah, 
because   of  the   quotation,  Matt.  27:  9,  10,  a  theory  with 
weak  support.    Others  ascribe  it  to  some  prophet  or  prophets 
before  700  b.  c.  (so  Kuenen,  Cheyne  and   Driver).     The 
external  evidence  for  unity  of  authorship  of  the  entire  book 
is   uniform    and    strong.     The    Septuagint    ascribes    it   to 
Zechariah.     The  New  Testament  allusions  give  no  hint  of 
more  than  one  author  for   the  prophecy.     The  arguments 
for  plurality  of  authors  rests  wholly  upon  internal  evidence ; 
inferences  from  interpretations  of  the  prophetic  discourses 
in  the  last  half  of  the  book  and  from  differences  in  phrase- 
ology, thought  and  description  between  the  first  and  the 
last  half.     This  may  be  largely  accounted  for  by  the  widely 
different  presentation  of  the  two  ;  one  consisting  of  sym- 
bols, the  other  of  direct  discourses.     The  question  is,  how- 
ever,  unsettled.     All   recognize  its    authority,   and    many 
scholars  discover  that  the  thought  is  essentially  Messianic, 
giving  unity  of  theme,  one  indication  of  unity  of  authorship. 


PROPHECY  AND  PROPHETICAL  BOOKS.        181 

22.  Malachi. — A  prophecy  in  six  discourses,  relating  to 
Israel  after  the  return  from  exile  and  during  the  Persian 
period.  It  contains  rebukes  of  the  people  and  of  the  priests, 
promises  of  grace  mingled  with  sweeping  judgment.  It  dis- 
tinctly foretells  that  Elijah  will  come  as  the  forerunner  of 
the  Messiah.  Should  the  forerunner  not  come,  or  fail  in 
his  mission,  the  prophet  threatens  that  Jehovah  will  come 
and  "smite  the  earth  with  a  curse."  And  thus  prophecy 
in  the  Old  Testament  closes  with  a  terrible  warning,  await- 
ing the  opening  of  the  New  Testament  with  an  angelic 
song,  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis. 

Malachi  means  ''my  messenger,"  and  some  have  sup- 
posed that  it  referred  to  Ezra  as  the  author.  But  this  con- 
jecture has  no  other  support  and  the  style  is  unlike  that  of 
Ezra.  Nothing  definite  is  known  of  the  prophet.  His 
style  is  terse  and  the  literary  structure  of  his  book  Socratic, 
his  aphorisms  being  in  the  form  of  question  and  answer. 
Four  centuries  of  prophetic  silence  follow,  broken  by  the 
advent  of  the  Messiah. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

LANGUAGES    AND    CIRCULATION    OF   THE    BIBLE. 

The  books  of  the  Bible  have  been  translated  into  a 
greater  number  of  languages  than  any  other  book  of  the 
world. 

i.  Languages  of  the  World. — How  many  languages 
are  there  in  the  world  ?  It  is  not  easy  to  ascertain  the 
number  spoken  by  the  fifteen  hundred  millions  of  peoples  on 
the  earth.  What  is  a  language?  What  marks  off  any 
form  of  speech  from  other  forms  so  distinctly  as  to  make 
it  a  different  language?  These  questions  are  not  so  simple 
to  answer  as  some  might  suppose. 

It  may  be  agreed  that  a  language  is  any  form  of  speech  that 
is  not  intelligible  to  those  speaking  other  forms.  But  it  is 
obvious  that  the  line  of  intelligibility  will  vary  widely  with 
different  minds,  and  therefore  in  practice  become  very 
elastic  and  indefinite.  Some  specified  form  of  speech 
might  appear  to  one  mind  to  have  clear  marks  of  a  dis- 
tinct language,  but  to  another  mind  it  might  seem  to  be 
nothing  more  than  a  dialect. 

The  practical  application,  therefore,  of  any  definition 
of  language  would  vary  with  the  aptitude  of  the  inquirer  to 
discern  nice  shades  of  differences  and  similarities  in  speech.. 
One  requires  to  be  skilled  in  the  subject,  besides  having  a 
keen  aptness,  in  order  to  decide  when  an  idiom  or  a  patois 
passes  into  a  dialect,  and  when  a  dialect  has  really  grown 
(182) 


LANGUAGES    AND    CIRCULATION    OF    THE    BIBLE.        183 

into  an  independent  language.  Otherwise,  he  will  be 
liable  to  multiply  languages  far  beyond  the  number  which 
the  more  sober  judgment  of  skilled  inquirers  would  recog- 
nize to  be  in  existence. 

Moreover,  if  one  is  dealing  with  living  languages  only, 
it  is  not  so  simple  a  matter  as  one  might  suppose  to 
pronounce  a  language  dead,  or  surely  dying  even.  For 
in  a  state  of  temporary  coma  or  of  transition,  it  may  be 
mistaken  for  a  dead  or  dying  language.  Some  languages 
that  once  were  reckoned  among  the  dead  are  now  recog- 
nized alive  and  still  spoken,  as  the  Hebrew,  for  example. 

Taking  all  these  facts  into  consideration,  and  comparing 
the  results  of  those  linguists  who  have  held  a  moderately 
conservative  point  of  view,  we  are  justified  in  assuming  that 
there  are  about  one  thousand  distinct  languages  or  living 
forms  of  human  speech.  If,  however,  the  slighter  varieties 
of  speech,  loosely  called  dialects,  are  added,  the  number 
would  be  increased  to  two  thousand  or  more.1 

It  is  safe  to  assert  that  about  one  hundred  of  the  widest- 
spoken  languages  of  the  world  would  be  sufficient  intel- 
ligibly to  communicate  with  full  nine-tenths  of  the  entire 
population  of  the  globe. 

2.  The  Bible  in  Many  Tongues. — It  might  seem  a 
very  easy  problem  to  ascertain  the  exact  number  of  lan- 
guages and  dialects  into  which  books  of  the  Bible  have 
been  translated.  What  would  it  require  more  than  to 
secure  a  list  of  the  different  versions  published  by  each 
Bible  society,  Bible  publishing  house  and  missionary  asso- 
ciation, and  the  adding  of  the  several  lists  together  to 
get  the  result  ? 

1  Century  Dictionary,  Arts.  Dialect,  Language ;  (Ecumenical  List  of 
Translations  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  by  Robert  N.  Cust,  LL.D..  pp. 
9-12,  London,  1 900. 


184      LANGUAGES    AND    CIRCULATION    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

In  fact,  however,  the  versions  in  separate  languages  and 
dialects  are  not  always  so  distinctly  marked  off  as  to  enable 
one  to  say  which  are  really  diverse.  It  calls  for  close, 
critical  examination  by  one  expert  in  languages  to  make 
this  computation.  As  the  scientific  inquirer,  who  attempts 
to  determine  the  number  of  species  in  the  animal  or  vege- 
table kingdom,  finds  himself  compelled  to  have  world- 
wide observation  and  to  master  a  vast  variety  of  details, 
so  the  inquirer  into  the  number  of  languages  that  have 
existing  versions  of  the  Scriptures  is  confronted  with  a 
similar  multitude  of  puzzling  details.1 

The  versions  are  presented  in  a  large  variety  of  written 
characters.  Over  fifty  different  types  of  character,  chiefly 
alphabetic,  but  some  syllabic  and  some  ideographic,  are 
recorded.  Thus  every  reader  recognizes  the  difference  in 
alphabetic  character,  between  the  Latin,  French,  English 
and  many  other  languages,  which  are  alike  expressed  in 
the  Roman  character  or  alphabet,  and  the  German  and 
Danish  languages,  which  are  commonly  written  in  the 
German  character  or  letter,  although  they  are  sometimes 
written  in  the  Roman  character  or  alphabet  also.  These 
are  widely  diverse  from  the  Greek  alphabet.  The  Hebrew 
is  again  diverse  in  written  character  from  either  of  the 
others.  The  Arabic,  the  Sanscrit  and  the  Chinese  are 
each  diverse  from  any  other  in  written  character.  Tims 
there  are  from  fifty  to  sixty  diverse  written  types  of  char- 
acter to  express  the  different  forms  of  speech.2  Some  of 
these  characters  are  written  from  left  to  right,  some  from 
right  to  left,  and  some  from  top  to  bottom  on  the  page. 

1  See  Four  Hundred  Tongues,  by  Rev.  J.  Gordon  Watt,  London, 
1899;  and  Dr.  Cust's  (Ecumenical  List  of  Translations,  London,  1900. 

2  See  Report  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society,  p.  324  ff,  London, 
1900  Dr.  Cust's  List  of  Translations,  p.  33,  London,  1900. 


LANGUAGES    AND    CIRCULATION    OF    THE    BIBLE.        185 

Moreover,  it  has  been  discovered  that  versions  in  the 
same  dialect  or  language,  made  by  persons  quite  unknown 
to  each  other,  and  of  different  speech  as  their  mother 
tongue,  have  unwittingly  given  different  titles  to  their 
versions,  and  have  used  different  idioms  to  express  the 
same  ideas  in  the  new  tongue,  so  that  the  inquirer  after 
the  exact  number  of  languages  is  confused,  perplexed  and 
quite  at  a  loss  to  know  whether  he  is  dealing  with  two 
different  languages,  or  with  only  two  versions  in  the 
same  language.1 

Thus  a  critical  examination  made  in  1900  of  the  carefully- 
prepared  "Historical  Table  of  Languages  and  Dialects," 
issued  by  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society,  resulted 
in  reducing  the  previous  reckoning  by  ten  languages  and 
dialects.  Some  were  found  to  be  duplicates,  and  some 
were  not  represented  by  any  published  book  of  the  Bible 
translated,  or  prepared  for  translation.  A  similar  examina- 
tion made  in  1836  reduced  the  then  existing  count  by  five 
languages,  and  in  T837  it  was  further  reduced  by  twenty- 
five  more,  thus  making  a  total  reduction  of  forty  versions 
in  the  enumeration.  As  one  ground  for  this  reduction, 
it  may  be  noted  that  the  Danish  and  the  Norwegian  were 
counted  two  languages  in  reports  previous  to  1900,  but 
were  reckoned  as  only  one  language  in  1901.  In  like 
manner  the  Mongo  and  the  Lolo  (or  Ba-Lolo)  had  been 
counted  two  dialects,  but  in  fact  are  one  and  the  same ; 
and  this  is  the  case  with  the  Gwamba  and  the  Thonga, 
also  the  Toro  and  Nyoro,  and  some  others. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  (1801)  the 
Scriptures  had    been    translated    into    scarcely  more    than 

1  See  Four  Hundred  Tongues,  by  Rev.  J.  Gordon  Watt,  p.  9,  ff, 
London,  1899. 


186       LANGUAGES    AND    CIRCULATION    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

fifty  languages.  These  were  chiefly  those  of  Europe, 
Western  Asia,  Northern  Africa  and  America.  During 
the  past  century,  books  of  the  Bible  have  been  translated 
into  upward  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  other  languages 
and  dialects.  The  activity  in  Bible  translation  may  be 
inferred  from  the  record  of  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
languages  and  dialects  into  which  books  of  the  Bible 
were  newly  translated  in  the  last  twenty-five  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  These  languages  had  not  before 
possessed  any  book  of  the  Scriptures  in  the  vernacular. 
In  the  same  period  partial  or  imperfect  versions  were 
revised  and  perfected  in  about  two  hundred  other  languages, 
making  a  total  of  nearly  three  hundred  and  fifty  versions 
in  as  many  languages  and  dialects  that  were  handled  and 
perfected  in  the  past  quarter  of  a  century.1 

3.  Versions  of  the  Bible. — Dropping  the  forty  versions 
already  described  as  erroneously  enumerated,  and  retaining 
such  languages  and  dialects  only,  as  have  at  least  one  entire 
book  of  the  Bible,  and  the  summary  of  translations  of  the 
Scriptures  may  be  computed  as  follows  : 


Languages  with  versions  of  the  whole  Bible 
Languages  with  versions  of  the  New  Testament 
Languages  with  versions  of  other  portions  of  the  Bible 
Translations  in  languages  not  now  in  active  use    . 

Total  of  languages  and  dialects  having  translations  of  the 
tures 


Scrip 


93 

26 


449 
This  summary  excludes  all  estimates,  and   includes  only 


1  In  Our  Tongues,  G.  A.  King,  2d  Ed.,  London,  1900  ;  (Ecumeni- 
cal List  of  Translations,  R.N.  Cust,  LL.  D.,  London,  1900  ;  Four 
Hundred  Tongues,  J.  (i.  Watt,  London,  1899;  Reports,  British  and 
Foreign  Bible  Society,  1 875  to  1 901  ;  Reports,  American  Bible  Society, 
1875  to  1901. 


LANGUAGES    AND    CIRCULATION    OF   THE    BIBLE.        187 

those  languages  and  dialects  concerning  which  some  definite 
authoritative  record  was  found.  It  therefore  omits  some 
languages  that,  up  to  this  date,  have  appeared  in  various 
lists  issued  in  England  and  America.  It  is  not  pretended 
that  further  critical  examination  will  prove  this  summary 
to  be  free  from  error,  but  it  is  believed  to  be  approximately 
correct  up  to  the  twentieth  century. 

It  does  not  count  all  the  translations  of  the  Bible,  for 
several  different  translations  have  often  been  made  into  the 
same  tongue.  In  all  cases  only  one  translation  into  each 
language  or  dialect  is  counted,  so  that  this  summary  repre- 
sents the  number  of  different  languages  and  dialects  into 
which  the  Bible,  or  some  entire  book  of  the  Bible,  has  been 
translated  and  published.1 

The  mortality  of  translations,  due  chiefly  to  new  versions 
made  for  tribes  that  have  since  become  extinct,  is  very 
small  compared  with  the  birth-rate  of  new  versions,  called 
forth  by  modern  missions. 

Since  the  gospel  is  extant  in  over  four  hundred  of  the 
widest  spoken  languages  of  the  world,  it  is  evident  that  all 
the  populous  nations  on  the  globe,  and  many  of  the  smaller 

1  Several  persons  have  lately  made  tentative  lists  of  translations  of 
the  Scriptures  on  scientific  principles.  J.  G.  Watt,  in  1 899,  noted 
living  versions  of  the  entire  Bible,  ill;  of  New  Testament,  91;  of 
portions,  204;  total,  406;  all  in  active  use.  Dr..  Cust,  in  1900, 
grouped  versions  in  340  distinct  languages  and  73  dialects;  total,  443. 
He  excluded  25  versions  not  in  use.  Dr.  Dennis  computed  versions 
in  447  languages  and  dialects,  but  ten  or  more  were  duplicates 
erroneously  counted.  Dr.  B.  Pick  compiled  an  alphabetical  (not 
scientific)  list,  reprinted  in  American  Bible  Society  Record,  1901,  of 
versions  made  in  the  nineteenth  century,  enumerating  432  languages. 
But  his  alphabetical  list  often  notes  the  same  language,  under  different 
titles,  twice,  thus  increasing  his  list  by  many  duplicates.  See  S.  S. 
World,  Jan.,  1902;  Watt's  Four  Hundred  Tongues,  1899;  Cust's  List 
of  Translations,  1900;  Am.  Bib.  Soc.  Rep.,  1901  ;  G.  A.  King,  "  In 
Our  Tongues,"  second  issue,  1900 ;  Hist.  Table  of  Lang,  and  Dialects, 
Brit,  and  For.  Bib.  Soc,  1901. 


188       LANGUAGES    AND    CIRCULATION    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

tribes,  now  possess  the  Scriptures  in  their  own  tongue. 
While  there  are  several  hundred  languages  yet  to  be  sup- 
plied with  translations  of  the  Scriptures,  these  languages 
are  spoken  by  comparatively  a  small  number  out  of  the  mil- 
lions of  the  human  race.  If  there  are  no  vast  fields 
for  Christians  of  the  twentieth  century  to  enter  and  win 
with  new  translations  of  the  Scriptures,  still  there  is  a  vast 
army  of  dialects,  over  nine  hundred  strong,  yet  wanting  a 
version  of  the  entire  Bible,  and  a  large  number  into  which 
the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  is  yet  to  be  translated. 

4.  Circulation  of  the  Scriptures  to  1800. — Cen- 
turies before  the  Christian  era  the  Jews  made  written 
copies  of  their  sacred  Scriptures  (our  Old  Testament)  in 
Hebrew.  They  also  had  written  copies  of  the  Septuagint 
or  Greek  version  of  the  Old  Testament  made  one  or  two 
centuries  before  Christ.  These  our  Lord  and  his  disciples 
frequently  cited. 

The  early  Christians  made  and  circulated  written  copies 
of  the  gospel  at  a  very  early  date,  since  Luke  tells  us  that 
"many"  had  written  such  narratives  before  he  composed 
the  gospel  that  bears  his  name.  It  has  been  computed 
that  60,000  copies  of  the  gospels  were  circulated  among 
Christians  before  the  end  of  the  second  century.1 

Origen  employed  virgins  skilled  in  calligraphy  to  make 
copies  of  the  sacred  books.  Eusebius  had  fifty  imperial 
copies  of  the  Scriptures  made  by  order  of  the  Emperor 
Constantine.  Great  numbers  of  copies  of  portions  of  Scrip- 
ture were  made  for  public  and  private  use  in  the  days  of  the 
Christian  fathers. 

But  before  the  invention  of  printing  the  multiplication 


1  Norton,  Genuineness  of  the  Gospels,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  28-36. 


LANUIAGF.S   AND   (ILKTLATION   of   the   bible.       i89 

of  copies  of  books  of  the  Bible  was  slow,  tedious  and  ex- 
pensive. Yet  so  diligent  were  the  early  Syrian  Christians, 
for  example,  in  the  circulation  of  the  Scriptures  that  copies 
of  their  translation  reached  Ceylon  in  the  sixth  century, 
and  China  in  the  seventh,  while  Dr.  Wace  has  shown 
that  Tatian's  Harmony  of  the  Four  Gospels  had  an  im- 
mense circulation  in  the  East  and  in  the  West,  taking  a 
Latin  form  in  the  sixth  century,  and  in  the  ninth  century 
was  current  in  old  Saxon.  The  Latin  (Vulgate)  was  cur- 
rent over  Europe,  Northern  Africa  and  portions  of  Western 
Asia.  Twenty  editions  of  it  were  printed  before  Luther 
was  born,  and  fourteen  editions  of  a  German  Bible  (trans- 
lated from  the  Vulgate)  had  been  printed  before  he  nailed 
his  thesis  on  the  door  of  the  church  at  Wittenberg.  "The 
Poor  Man's  Bible,"  an  octavo  Latin  version,  appeared  in 
1491.  The  Hebrew  Old  Testament  was  printed  as  early 
as  1488.  Cardinal  Ximenes  printed  his  Polyglot  (Greek) 
in  15 14  (but  not  for  the  public),  and  Erasmus  published 
his  Greek  Testament,  dedicated  to  the  Pope,  in  15 16. 
This  activity  in  popular  Bible  circulation  in  the  Latin 
church  received  a  fatal  check  by  the  decision  of  the  Coun- 
cil of  Trent  in  1546. x 

When  Luther  issued  his  German  version  of  the  Bible, 
100,000  copies  were  sold  within  forty  years  (1534-1574)? 
besides  probably  a  million  copies  of  portions  of  the  Bible, 
and  between  1524  and  161 1  not  less  than  278  editions  of 
Bibles  and  Testaments  were  issued  in  English,  among  them 
21,000  copies  of  the  Great  Bible.  In  three  years  (1611- 
1613),  after   its  issue,   five    editions  of  the    King   James 

1  A  trustworthy  and  candid  statement  on  this  subject  is  given  in  the 
address  of  Canon  Edmonds,  before  the  CEcumenical  Conference  of 
Missions,  New  York,  1900.  See  also  Dr.  Gilman's  Eighty-four  Years 
of  Bible  Society  Work,  2d  Revised  Edition,  New  York,  1900. 


190       LANGUAGES    AND    CtRCtTLATtON    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

Version  were  printed,  besides  separate  editions  of  the 
New  Testament.2 

The  first  English  Bible  printed  in  America  was  a  small 
i8mo.  book  issued  in  Philadelphia  in  1782,  on  which  the 
publisher  lost  about  £3,000  (815,000)  in  specie,  but  the 
book  is  so  rare  now  that  a  single  copy  lately  brought  $650. 3 
Robert  Aitken,  the  same  publisher,  had  also  printed  the 
New  Testament  in  1777.  In  1790  the  Douay  Version  was 
printed  in  Philadelphia,  and  111  the  same  year  William 
Young  issued  an  edition  of  the  King  James'  Version  in 
the  same  city.  The  next  year  (1791)  two  other  editions 
were  printed  in  America,  one  by  Isaiah  Thomas,  in  Wor- 
cester, Mass.,  and  the  other  by  Isaac  Collins,  of  the  Society 
of  Friends,  in  Trenton,  N.  J.  A  German  Bible  was  also 
printed  by  Christopher  Sauer  in  Germantown,  Pa.,  in 
1743,  Eliot's  version  in  the  Indian  (Algonquin)  language, 
was  printed  in  Cambridge,  Mass.;  the  Testament  in  1661, 
the  entire  Bible  in  1663,  and  again  in  1680  and  1685. 

Thus  the  Scriptures  in  English,  German  and  in  many 
other  tongues  had  a  large  circulation  in  civilized  nations 
before  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  though  it 
was  never  so  free  or  large  among  Latin  Christians  after 
1546,  as  in  earlier  times. ! 

5.  Bible  Circulation  in  the  Nineteenth  Century. — 


1  Schafk  Hist.  Christian  Church.  Vol.  VI.,  p.  350.  Manual  Am. 
Bible  Society,  1898,  p.  44. 

2  See  Gilman's  Eighty-four  Years  of  Bible  Society  Work,  2d.  Edi- 
tion, 1900,  p.  11. 

3  "  Only  one  great  church  in  Christendom  remains  implacably  op- 
posed to  the  free  circulation  of»the  Scriptures.  The  rooted  hostility  of 
the  Roman  Curia  to  an  open  Bible  bears  bitter  fruit,  conspicuously 
among  the  Latin  nations."  Report  of  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible 
Society,  p.  10,  1900. 


LANGUAGES   AND   CIRCULATION    OF   THE    KtBLE.       191 

The  total  circulation  of  the  Scriptures  during  the  nine- 
teenth century  ran  into  the  hundreds  of  millions  of  copies. 
Their  circulation  is  said  to  exceed  the  combined  circula- 
tion of  two  hundred  of  the  best,  greatest  and  most  popular 
literary  works  of  the  world. 

Within  the  first  fifteen  years  of  the  nineteenth  century 
private  publishers  in  America  issued  134  editions  of  the 
Bible  and  sixty-five  editions  of  the  New  Testament.  From 
1800  to  1865  there  were  issued  in  America  about  600 
different  editions  of  the  Bible  and  200  editions  of  the 
New  Testament,  besides  100  editions  of  the  Scriptures  in 
foreign  languages,  and  100  editions  of  separate  books  of 
the  Bible.  Some  of  these  editions  had  a  very  large  cir- 
culation. As  early  as  1850  there  were  over  thirty  firms 
in  the  United  States,  some  of  them  having  a  large  capital, 
engaged  in  publishing  the  Scriptures,  and  issuing  not  less 
than  400,000  copies  annually.  Of  these  about  200,000 
copies  were  large  family  Bibles.  At  the  same  time  many 
thousands  of  copies  were  yearly  imported  from  Great 
Britain  and  Germany.  The  number  of  copies  printed 
and  circulated  in  these  and  other  Christian  countries  of 
Europe  and  the  world  vastly  exceeded  those  distributed 
in  America,  while  those  distributed  by  Bible  and  mission- 
ary agencies  in  other  parts  of  the  world  increased  the 
number  to  several  millions  of  copies. 

Some  conception  of  the  immense  circulation  of  the 
Scriptures  in  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  may  be  gained 
from  the  fact  that  the  University  presses  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  England,  had  orders  for  over  2,000,000  copies 
of  the  Revised  New  Testament  of  1881  before  it  was 
printed,  and  2.000,000  copies  were  actually  sold  in  Lon- 
don, and  500,000  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  of  these 


102      LANGUAGES   AND   CIRCULATION    OF   THE   BIBLE. 

University  editions,  besides  reprints  of  over  twenty  edi- 
tions which  private  publishers  issued  in  the  United  States 
within  a  year  of  its  completion. 

The  Oxford  presses  printed  for  the  British  Bible  Society 
5,000,000  copies  of  the  Penny  Testament  in  a  single 
edition.  Many  thousands  of  copies  of  "  Teachers'  Bibles  " 
have  been  printed  and  circulated  by  private  publishing 
firms  and  Sunday-school  societies  within  the  past  twenty- 
five  years. 

The  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  up  to  1901  had 
issued  169,971,544  copies  of  the  Bible  and  of  portions. 
The  American  Bible  Society  also  had  issued  68,953,434 
copies  of  the  Scriptures  and  portions.  The  Canstein  Bible 
Institue  reported  issuing  6,100,000  copies  up  to  1879. 
Its  reports  indicate  that  it  has  put  forth  about  750,000 
copies  since  that  date.  The  National  Bible  Society  of  Scot- 
land, the  Prussian  Bible  Society,  the  Wurtemberg  Society, 
and  the  Bible  Translation  Society,  are  all  active  in  circu- 
lating the  Bible.  To  these  must  be  added  the  great 
national  religious  societies,  like  the  Religious  Tract  So- 
ciety;  the  Society  for  Promoting  Christian  Knowledge; 
the  American  Sunday-school  Union  ;  American  Tract  So- 
ciety ;  the  various  missionary  societies,  and  denominational 
and  other  large  publishing  firms  of  Great  Britian,  America 
and  Europe,  with  the  mission  presses  in  other  lands,  all 
pouring  forth  millions  of  copies  of  the  books  of  the 
Bible. 

The  issues  of  the  three  Bible  societies  named  amounted 
during  the  century  past  to  245,774,978  copies.  If  to  these 
are  added  the  copies  of  the  Scriptures  printed  by  all  the 
other  Bible  societies  and  great  publishing  firms  of  the 
world  during  the  nineteenth  century,  the  total  will  exceed 


LANGUAGES    AND    CIRCULATION    OF    THE    BIBLE.        193 

rather  than  fall  below  500,000,000  of  copies  of  the  Word 
of  God  scattered  abroad  for  the  healing  of  the  nations. 

6.  Annual  Bible  Circulation  in  1900. — The  yearly 
circulation  of  the  Bible,  New  Testament  and  separate 
books  of  the  Bible  may  be  stated  as  follows :  The  British 
and  Foreign  Bible  Society  reports  in  1900  issuing  5,047,792 
copies  of  the  Bible  and  portions  in  305  languages  "di- 
rectly" and  in  68  other  languages  "indirectly."  Of 
these  eight  were  translations  in  new  languages  not  before 
having  the  Scriptures.  In  1901  it  reports  issuing  4,914,359 
copies,  in  363  languages  and  dialects,  direct  and  indirect, 
of  which  four  were  entirely  new  translations  in  languages 
not  before  entered.  The  British  Society  does  not  print 
the  Scriptures,  but  employs  others  to  do  it,  who  are  granted 
the  privilege  or  right  by  royal  authority. 

The  American  Bible  Society  reports  in  1900  issuing 
1,406,801  copies  of  the  Scriptures,  in  whole  or  in  part, 
and  1,554,128  copies  for  1901,  in  about  sixty  different 
languages.  This  society  prints  the  Scriptures  it  circulates, 
excepting  some  editions  in  foreign  tongues  which  are 
printed   by  mission  presses,  chiefly    in  Asiatic  countries. 

The  total  yearly  circulation  of  Bibles,  Testaments  and 
books  of  the  Bible,  may  be  properly  computed  by  counting 
only  complete  copies  of  the  whole  Bible,  and  of  New 
Testaments,  and  of  some  one  complete  Bible  book.  Thus, 
all  the  issues  of  the  entire  Bible,  and  of  books  of  the  Bible, 
in  some  one  of  the  many  languages  of  the  globe,  in  one 
year,  by  all  the  Bible  Societies  of  the  world,  and  by  the 
various  other  great  societies  and  publishing  firms,  printing 
the  Scripture  (both  for  circulation  by  their  own  and  through 
other  organizations)  may  be  tabulated  as  follows : 


104       LANGUAGES    AND    CIRCULATION    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

Copies  of  Bibles,  Testaments  and  books  of  the  Bible  by  the 

British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society,  1901 J    4,91 4,359 

Copies  issued  by  the  American  Bible  Society,  1901       1,554,128 

Copies  by  the  National  Bible  Society  of  Scotland,  19013  ....  941,535 
Copies   by  the  German  Bible   Societies,  1900  (exclusive  of 

those  furnished  by  British  and  American  societies4  ....  579>37i 
Copies  by  other  Bible  societies  (Swiss,  French,  Danish,  etc.)  287,000 
Copies  by  English  firms  (University  Presses,  Bagster's,  Eyre 

and  Spottiswood,  and  others  5 3,520,000 

Copies  by  American,  German  and  other  private   publishers, 

exclusive  of  imported  and  exported  copies  5     605,000 

12,401,393 
Add  Psalms  and  portions  of  the  Bible  in  prayer  books  5  .  . . .    1,500,000 

Total  yearly  circulation 13>90l>393 

These  trustworthy  sources  of  information  give  a  total 
yearly  circulation  for  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century  of  about  fourteen  millions  of  copies  of  the  Word 
of  God,  exclusive  of  commentaries,  Sunday-school  and 
catechetical  lessons,  and  special  works  explaining  and 
enforcing  Scripture.  Though  the  total  is  immense  and 
unprecedented  in  the  history  of  Christianity  up  to  this 
century,  yet  it  would  require  about  forty  years  of  such 
activity  in  Bible  printing  and  circulation  to  provide  enough 
copies  for  each  family  of  the  globe  to  possess  a  copy  of  the 
gospel  of  Jesus  Christ. 

1  Reports  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society,  1900,  1 901. 

2  Reports  American  Bible  Society,  1900,  1901. 

3  Reports  British  Society,  1900,  1901. 

4  Reports  of  the  Societies  for  1900. 

6  Private  and  Personal  information  furnished  the  author,  1901. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 


CARE    OF    BIBLE    TEXT. 

Chapters,  Words  and  Letters. 

1.  To  the  statements  on  pp.  62,  63,  it  may  be  added  that  the  Jews  not 
only  counted  the  books,  sections  and  paragraphs  in  their  Hebrew 
Scriptures,  the  Old  Testament,  but  also  marked  the  number  of  times 
the  same  word  occurred  in  each  paragraph,  the  middle  verse  or  para- 
graph of  each  book,  every  verse  where  words  were  supposed  to  be 
changed,  or  something  forgotten,  any  letters  deemed  superfluous,  letters 
that  were  inverted,  not  pronounced,  or  did  not  hang  perpendicular, 
and  counted  and  recorded  the  number  of  each. 

2.  The  Massoretes  also  noted  how  many  times  each  letter  occurred  in 
the  Hebrew  Bible.  Walton  in  his  Prolegomena  gives  the  table  of  the 
Massoretes  : 


LETTERS.  TIMES. 

Jf  Aleph  in  Hebrew  Bible  42,377 
'<  38,218 
"      29,537 


3  Beth 
y  Gimel 
"[  Daleth 
H  He 

I  Vau 

J  Zayin 

II  Hheth 
tO  Teth 

1  Yodh 
3  Kaph 


LETTERS.  TIMES. 

7  Lamedh  in  HebrewBible  41,517 


ft   Mem 
^  Nun 


2>53°    D  Samekh 


47,504 
76,922 
22,876 
23,447 
11,052 
66,420 
48,253    fi  Tau 


J?  Ayin 
£   Pe 
V  Tsadhe 
P  Koph 
*)  Resh 
J^  Shin 


77,778 
41,696 
i3,58o 
20,175 
22,725 
21,882 
22,972 
22,147 
32,148 
59,343 


When  a  word  was  found  in  the  text  with  a  small  circle  annexed  to 
it,  then  a  word  they  supposed  to  be  the  true  one  would  be  written  in 
the  margin. 

(195) 


19(3  CARE    OF    BIBLE    TEXT. 


3.  The  Massoretes  had  a  cabalistic  way  of  noting  the  number  of  the 
sections,  words,  letters  and  the  like  in  the  Hebrew  text,  as  putting  the 
number  of  a  congregation  in  one  verse  and  the  number  of  animals  in 
the  next,  and  the  two  added  together  made  the  number  of  times  the 
letter  indicated  occurred  in  the  book  or  in  the  Old  Testament.  Then 
they  noted  that  two  verses  of  the  law  began  with  the  letter  Mem ; 
eleven  verses  began  and  ended  with  the  letter  Nun  ;  forty  verses  had 
the  word  "  Lo  "  three  times,  and  so  on. 

4.  As  a  curious  specimen  of  what  this  minuteness  of  the  Massoretes 
stimulated  others  to  do,  it  is  said  that  some  anonymous  writer  of  the 
last  century  spent  three  years  in  counting  and  recording  similar  facts  in 
respect  to  the  Common  English,  or  King  James'  Version  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. As  the  English  text  varies  in  spelling  and  form,  not  having  the 
fixed  type  of  the  old  Hebrew,  such  a  count  of  the  English  text  must  vary 
considerable,  at  different  periods.  The  Revised  English  Version  from 
various  omissions  of  verses,  portions  of  verses,  and  change  of  words 
in  italics,  which  the  English  translators  insert  to  make  the  sense 
clearer  to  the  common  reader,  would  vary  more  widely  than  would 
different  editions  of  King  James'  Version.  The  compiler  called  his 
work  Old  and  Nerv  Testament  Dissected,  and  gave  the  following  sum- 
mary of  the  English  Bible : 


Old  Testament. 

New  Testament. 

Total. 

Books 

39 

27 

66 

Chapters. . 

929 

260 

1,189 

Verses 

23,214 

7,959 

3hi73 

Words.... 

592,439 

181,253 

773,692 l 

Letters 

2,728,110 

838,380 

3,566,490 

The  shortest  and  the  middle  chapter  in  the  Bible  is  Ps.  117.  The 
middle  verse  of  the  Bible  is  Ps.  1 18:  8.  The  word  and  occurs  in  the 
Old  Testament  35,543  times.  The  same  word  occurs  in  the  New 
Testament  6,853  times.     The  word  Jehovah  occurs  6,853  times. 

The  middle  book  of  the  Old  Testament  is  Proverbs.  The  middle 
chapter  of  the  Old  Testament,  Job  29.  The  middle  of  the  verses  in 
the  Old  Testament  is  between  2  Chron.  20  :  17  and  2  Chron.  20  :  18. 

The  shortest  verse  in  the  Old  Testament  is  1  Chron.  1  :  25. 

The  middle  book  of  the  New  Testament  is  2  Thess. 

The  middle  of  the  chapters  of  the  New  Testament  is  between  the 
13th  and  14th  chapters  of  Romans. 

The  middle  verse  of  the  New  Testament  is  Acts  17  :  17. 

The  shortest  verse  in  the  New  Testament  and  in  the  Bible  is  John 
":35. 

1  The  American  Bible  Society  Manual  gives  the  total  number  of  words  in  the 
English  Bible,  773,746;  and  the  total  number  of  letters,  3,566,480.  This  is  doubtless 
due  to  a  different  division,  as  counting  some  compounds  as  two  words,  which 
some  Bibles  print  as  one  word. 


CARE    OF   BIBLE   TEXT.  197 


Ezra  7  :  21  has  all  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  except/ 

There  are  several  passages  of  some  length  alike,  as  Isa.  37  is  like 
2  Kings  19. 

5.  The  Greek  words. — In  the  Greek  text  of  the  first  three  Gospels, 
Matthew  contains  18,370  words  (Revised  Greek  Text,  Oxford,  1881)  ; 
Mark  10,981  words;  Luke  19,496  words,  a  total  of  48,847  Greek 
words  in  the  three  synoptic  Gospels. 

The  Revised  English  New  Testament  according  to  Rev.  Rufus  Wen- 
dell (Student's  Edition,  Albany,  1882)  contains: 

No.  of  paragraphs '. 1,128 

No.  of  verses 7,943 

No.  of  words 179,914 


The  total  number  of  words  belonging  to  each  writer  is  as  follows: 

Paul  (fourteen  books) 50,649 

Luke  (two  books) 49,865 

John  (five  books) 34,236 


Matthew  (one  book) 23,407 


Mark  (one  book) 14,854 

Peter  (two  books) 3,966 

James  (one  book) 2,306 

Jude  (one  book) 631 


6.  The  vocabulary,  or  number  of  different  Greek  words  used  by 
each  writer,  is  much  smaller.  For  example,  while  the  total  number  of 
Greek  words  in  the  first  three  Gospels  is  48,847,  the  number  of  different 
Greek  words  used  by  these  three  writers  in  the  Gospels  is  only  about 
2400,  of  which  Luke  uses  nearly  1800. 


ANALYSIS   AND   QUESTIONS. 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE  HIBLE,  TITLE,  LANGUAGES,  STRUCTURE,  LATE    ENGLISH    VERSIONS. 

1.  Which  is  the  greatest  book  in  the  world?  In  what  three  things? 
How  many  are  swayed  by  it  ?  Which  are  the  three  foremost  nations 
of  the  world  ?  In  what  three  respects  are  they  greatest  ?  Which  is 
their  greatest  book?    In  what  six  things? 

2.  What  is  the  origin  of  the  title,  The  Bible  ?  What  was  the  col- 
lection called  by  Jerome?  What  by  Chrysostom  ?  By  Jews?  From 
what  was  the  title  "  Testament  "    derived  ? 

3.  How  many  books  were  accepted  as  "  Sacred  Scriptures  "  by  the 
Jews?  How  many  are  accepted  in  the  New  Testament?  How  many 
in  the  entire  Bible  ? 

4.  Who  want  to  know  about  the  Bible  ?  State  some  things  they  wish 
to  know.     State  six  of  the  things  we  shall  consider. 

5.  In  what  languages  was  the  Old  Testament  first  written  ?  What 
portions  were  in  Aramaic  ?  Where  was  that  language  spoken  ?  How 
early?  How  did  it  displace  the  Hebrew  ?  To  what  group  of  languages 
does  it  belong  ?  In  what  language  was  the  New  Testament  fir>t 
written  ?  What  dialect  of  the  Greek  ?  Were  these  "  classic  "  dialects  ? 
What  gain  was  there  in  the  languages  being  in  a  "  transition  "  rather 
than  "  classic  "  state  ? 

6.  How  long  was  the  Bible  in  process  of  formation  ?  How  early 
preserved  ?  How  old  are  the  records  found  in  Assyria  and  Egypt  ? 
How  copies  of  the  Bible  have  been  multiplied?  What  method  of 
study  is  adopted  in  this  book  ?  What  principle  of  education  is  thus 
followed  ? 

7.  When  was  the  Anglo-American  revision  of  the  Bible  made  ? 
What  added  features  are  in  the  "  American  Standard  Revised  Bible" 
of  1901  ?  Why  was  it  called  "Anglo-American"  version?  When 
was  the  King  James  Version  made?  By  what  other  name  is  it 
known  ?  Why  called  "  Authorized  Version  ?  "  Why  "  Common 
Version  ?" 

8.  When  was  the  revision  of  the  Common  English  or  King  James 
Version  proposed,  and  when  begun?  By  what  class  of  scholars? 
When  was  the  American  Committee  of  Revision  formed  ?  How  many 
British  and  how  many  American   scholars  were  engaged  as  revisers  ? 

9.  When  was  the  revised  New  Testament  issued  ?  How  many  copies 
sold  in  a  few  months  ?  How  many  editions  were  issued  in  the  United 
States?  How  was  the  revised  Old  Testament  received  in  1885? 
When  did  the  revision  of  the  Apocrypha  appear  ? 

10.  Why  was  King  James  Version   revised  ?      What  class  of  words 

(198) 


ANALYSIS   AND   QUESTIONS.  199 

was  to  be  removed  ?     How  was  a  better  Greek  text  obtained  ?    In 
what  was  greater  uniformity  to  be  secured  ? 

H.  How  were  the  revisers  guided  in  revising  ?  How  limited  as  to 
alterations  ?    What  text  was  to  be  adopted  ? 

12.  How  many  changes  were  made  in  the  New  Testament  ? 
How  many  were  due  to  changes  in  the  Greek  text  ?  How  many 
American  suggestions  were  adopted  ?  What  were  put  in  an  appendix  ? 
Does  this  appendix  represent  all  the  preferences  of  the  American 
Committee  ? 

13.  State  five  points  of  merit  claimed  for  the  Anglo-American 
revision.  State  five  points  of  objection  to  it.  What  changes  were 
urged  by  the  American  scholars,  but  not  adopted  by  the  British  ? 
[See  note.  p.  17.] 

14.  How  is  the  Revised  Version  used?  Is  it  likely  to  win  popular 
favor  ?  What  advantages  has  the  American  Standard  Edition  of 
1901  ? 

15.  When  was  the  "King  James  Version"  proposed?  By  what 
body?  How  many  were  appointed  to  do  the  work?  How  many 
actually  engaged  in  it  ?  How  was  the  work  divided  among  the  com- 
panies ?  What  portions  of  the  Bible  were  assigned  to  the  two  com- 
panies at  Westminster?  To  the  two  at  Oxford?  To  the  two  at 
Cambridge?  What  noted  scholars  were  among  the  King  James 
revisers  ? 

16.  What  rules  were  to  guide  these  translators?  What  texts  were 
they  to  use  ?  What  older  versions  might  be  used  ?  How  were  they 
compensated  for  their  labor  ?    What  methods  were  pursued  by  them  ? 

17.  What  did  the  translators  say  of  their  work?  What  shows  that 
they  aimed  to  make  a  revision  rather  than  a  new  translation  ?  When 
and  by  whom  was  the  King  James  Version  issued  ?  In  what  three 
editions  ? 

18.  Why  is  it  called  "  Authorized  Version  ?  "  Was  it  so  author- 
ized ?  By  whom  was  it  ordered  ?  How  long  was  it  in  gaining 
popular  favor  ?     What  charges  were  made  against  it? 

19.  How  long  was  the  Genevan  Version  retained  in  use?  When 
was  a  new  revision  proposed  in  parliament  ?  Why  was  it  not 
carried  ? 

20.  How  many  changes  are  noted  in  present  editions,  as  compared 
with  the  161 1  editions  of  the  King  James  Version?  When  were 
dates  first  placed  in  the  margins  ?  Upon  whose  chronology  were  they 
based  ?     Why  are  some  words  in  italics  ? 

21.  When  was  an  attempt  to  improve  the  Common  Version  made  ? 
By  what  committee  ?  How  many  variations  did  they  find  ?  What 
propose  to  do  ?  Why  was  their  edition  not  continued  ?  Have  we  a 
Standard  Edition  of  the  English  Version  ?  What  are  some  notorious 
editions  ?  What  is  said  of  the  English  of  our  Common  Version  as 
a  classic  ? 


200  ANALYSIS    AND    QUESTIONS. 

CHAPTER    II. 

EARLY  ENGLISH  VERSIONS. 

(Douai,  Bishops',  Genevan,  Coverdale's,  Cranmer,  Taverner,  Tyndale 
and  Wycliffe  Versions.) 

1.  Of  what  was  the  Common  Version  the  outgrowth?  Of  how 
many  centuries'  labor  ? 

2.  What  is  meant  by  the  Douai  Version ?  Why  was  it  issued? 
When  and  where  was  the  Rheims  or  Douai  New  Testament  published  ? 
When  and  where  was  the  Douai  Old  Testament  issued  ?  The  whole 
Bible  ?  To  whom  does  this  work  owe  its  origin  ?  What  was  the  basis 
of  this  translation  ?  By  whom  was  it  made  ?  On  what  was  the  Douai 
Version  based  ?  How  has  it  been  changed  ?  Has  it  been  much  used  ? 
Why  ?  Is  there  any  connection  between  this  and  the  King  James 
Version  ? 

3.  The  Bishops'  Bible,  why  so  called  ?     By  whom  was  it  prepared 
When  was  it  completed  ?     When  and  by  whom  was  it  revised  ?    By 
what  other  name  is  it  sometimes  called  ? 

4.  Why  was  it  made  ?     Why  was  the  Great  Bible  not  satisfactory? 

5.  How  long  a  time  was  spent  upon  the  Bishops'  Version?  By 
what  four  rules  were  its  translators  governed  ?  What  did  this  Bible 
contain  beside  the  text  ? 

6.  When  was  the  last  edition  issued  ?  What  rule  was  made  by  Con- 
vocation concerning  it?     Was  it  popular? 

7.  The  Genevan  version,  made  in  what  era?  When  and  by 
whom  was  this  version  made  ?     Whence  does  it  derive  it-   name? 

8.  In  what  year  was  the  Genevan  New  Testament  made  ?  Where 
was  it  translated,  by  whom,  and  when  ? 

9.  Was  that  New  Testament  version  made  a  part  of  the  Genevan 
Bible  ?  Where  was  the  Genevan  Bible  made  ?  Mention  the  names 
of  some  of  the  translators  of  the  Genevan  Bible.  Was  the  New  Tes- 
tament in  this  work  a  translation  directly  from  the  original  ? 

10.  What  were  some  of  the  merits  of  this  translation  ?  What  kind 
of  notes  were  made  ?     How  was  the  text  printed  ? 

11.  When  was  it  first  printed  in  Scotland?  By  whom  revised  ? 
How  is  it  distinguished  from  others  ?  What  nickname  was  given  to  it, 
and  why?  Was  it  popular  ?  How  long  was  it  under  Queen  Mary's 
ban  ?  How  many  editions  of  the  Genevan  Bible  were  printed  ?  How 
long  did  it  retain  its  popularity  ?  What  was  done  in  the  first  editions 
of  King  James'  Version  to  win  popularity? 

1 2.  The  Great  Bible,  why  so  called  ?  When  was  this  version  issued  ? 
By  whom  was  the  translation  made  ?  Where  was  it  printed  ?  What 
difficulties  were  met  by  the  translator  in  its  printing?  What  is  meant 
by  Cranmer's  Bible?  Wrhitechurch's?  What  was  its  relation  to 
Coverdale's  Bible  ?     Where  may  selections  from  the  Great  Bible  be 


ANALYSIS  AND   QUESTIONS.  201 

found  ?     For  how  many  years  was  the  Great  Bible  the  "  Authorized 
Version?  " 

13.  When  was  Coverdale's  Bible  translated?  Upon  what  was  it 
based  ?  What  German  versions  is  it  probable  that  he  used  ?  What 
merits  had  this  version  ?     What  other  work  was  done  by  him  ? 

14.  When  was  Matthew's  Bible  issued  ?  Who  is  Matthew  thought 
to  have  been  ?  What  other  versions  does  this  resemble  ?  In  what 
respects  ? 

15.  On  what  was  Taverner's  Bible  based?  Of  what  value  is  his 
version  ?      What  did  he  say  of  it  ? 

16.  Tyndale's  New  Testament  Version,  when  issued  ?  What  aim  did 
Tyndale  keep  before  him  ?  Did  he  fulfil  this  declaration  ?  When 
did  he  die,  and  how  ?     When  did  he  leave  England  ? 

17.  Which  was  the.  first  translation  of  the  New  Testament  from 
Greek  into  English  ?     Where  was  it  issued  ?     Describe  the  title  page. 

18.  What  are  some  characteristics  of  its  style  ?  How  is  the  text  ar- 
ranged ?  How  does  the  Lord's  Prayer  in  it  differ  from  other  versions  ? 
Did  Tyndale  translate  only  the  New  Testament  ? 

19.  What  do  we  owe  to  Tyndale's  Version?  What  does  Froude  say 
of  his  talent?     What  part  of  the  Bible  was  printed  before  this  ? 

20.  When  was  Wycliffe's  Version  made  ?  What  text  was  the  basis 
of  the  translation  ?  How  was  it  issued  ?  Who  assisted  Wycliffe  in 
translating  the  Old  Testament  ? 

21.  What  is  meant  by  Purvey 's  Version  ?  Why  were  these  versions 
anonymous  ?  How  many  copies  of  Purvey's  Version  have  been  pre- 
served ?  What  is  said  of  the  character  of  this  early  English  version  ? 
What  earlier  metrical  versions  are  mentioned  ?  By  whom  made  ?  In 
how  many  ways  is  the  name  of  Wycliffe  spelled  ?  What  is  said  of  the 
cost  of  a  Bible  in  1429  ? 

22.  Mention  three  important  Anglo-Saxon  versions  of  portions  of  the 
Bible.  By  whom  were  they  made  ?  What  translator  wrote  a  church 
history  ? 

23.  What  is  said  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  words  in  the  Common  English 
Version  ?  Give  examples  of  the  proportion  of  Anglo-Saxon  words  in 
the  story  of  Joseph.  The  parable  of  the  Sower.  The  Lord's  Prayer. 
How  does  the  proportion  of  Anglo-Saxon  of  the  Bible  compare  with 
that  in  Milton  ? 

24.  When  was  the  first  complete  English  Bible  made  ?  From  what 
text?  When  was  the  New  Testament  in  English  first  translated  from 
the  Greek?  When  was  the  first  English  Bible  printed?  When  was 
the  English  New  Testament  first  divided  into  verses  ?  When  was  the 
English  Bible  so  divided  ?  State  comparative  cost  of  early  English 
Bibles. 


202  ANALYSIS   AND   QUESTIONS. 

CHAPTER    III. 

OTHER    MODERN    VERSIONS    OF   THE   BIBLE. 

1.  Of  what  other  versions  of  the  Bible  should  English  readers  have 
some  knowledge?  Who  chiefly  made  the  German  Version  of  the 
Bible? 

2.  What  earlier  versions  of  the  Bible  in  German  are  noticed  ?  What 
are  the  two  theories  with  regard  to  the  earlier  translations?  In  what 
form  was  this  version  issued  ?  What  objections  were  made  to  the  trans- 
lation of  religious  works  into  German  ? 

3.  When  and  where  was  Luther's  version  made  ?  Describe  its  title, 
form  and  illustrations.     Who  assisted  Luther  in  the  work  ? 

4.  How  was  Luther's  Bible  received  ?  WThat  did  it  do  for  the  Ger- 
man language  ? 

5.  What  original  text  of  the  New  Testament  did  Luther  use  ?  From 
what  was  his  Old  Testament  translated?  What  does  Heine  say  of 
Luther  ? 

6.  What  is  meant  by  the  Probebibel ?  When  was  it  published? 
Mention  some  of  the  scholars  connected  with  it.        How  is  it  used  ? 

7.  What  effect  did  Luther's  version  have  upon  the  Roman  Catholics? 
Mention  the  chief  Catholic  versions.  How  do  they  compare  with 
Luther's  translation  ?     Which  one  is  now  used  ? 

8.  When  was  the  fust  complete  translation  of  the  Bible  into  Dutch 
made  ?  By  whom  was  it  made  ?  What  did  its  printer  suffer  for  his 
work  ?  By  whom  was  the  next  version  made  ?  On  what  were  these 
versions  based  ? 

9.  How  long  was  it  before  another  was  made  ?  How  delayed  ? 
When  finally  begun  ?  How  long  was  it  carried  on  ?  What  name  was 
given  to  this  new  version  ?     What  is  its  character  ? 

10.  Why  was  a  new  revision  ordered  in  1854?  When  completed? 
How  received? 

11.  When  and  by  whom  was  the  first  French  version  made  ?  When 
was  the  first  French  Protestant  version  made  ?  Where  and  by  whom 
was  it  made  ?     Mention  some  other  French  versions. 

12.  Describe  the  version  by  Louis  Segond.  Where  was  it  printed? 
How  many  copies  of  the  first  edition  ? 

13.  What  Italian  versions  were  made  before  the  Reformation? 
Whose  version  was  prohibited  by  the  Roman  Church  ? 

14.  When  and  where  did  the  first  Italian  Protestant  version  appear? 
In  what  dialect  ?    Which  versions  are  circulated  by  the  Bible  Society  ? 

15.  Which  is  the  earliest  of  Spanish  versions?  Where  was  Reyna's 
Version  published  ?  By  whom  revised  ?  When?  Describe  the  version 
published  at  Madrid  in  1794.     Which  versions  are  now  published? 

16.  Give  the  history  of  the  Danish  Bible. 

17.  When  and  by  whom  was  the  Bible  translated  into  Swedish? 


ANALYSIS   AND    QUESTIONS.  203 


18.  Into  how  many  other  languages  has  the  Bible  been  translated? 
Mention  some  of  the  important  languages. 

19.  Who  made  the  modern  Arabic  version  ?     What  is  said  of  its 
merits  ? 


CHAPTER   IV. 

ANCIENT    VERSIONS    OF   THE    BIBLE. 

1.  Of  what  value  are  ancient  translations  of  the  Bible  to  us? 

2.  Whence  was  the  gospel  introduced  into  Armenia  ?  What  was 
the  basis  of  the  translations  of  the  Bible  into  Armenian  ?  When  did 
the  Armenians  have  a  written  language  ?  What  version  did  they  first 
use  ?  From  what  manuscript  does  the  first  Armenian  version  seem  to 
have  been  translated  ?  By  whom  and  where  was  the  next  translation 
made?     What  virtue  does  this  translation  possess  ? 

3.  Who  translated  the  Bible  into  Gothic  ?  What  is  meant  by  the 
"  Western  order"  of  the  Gospels  ?  What  books  are  missing  from  this 
version  ? 

4.  The  Coptic  or  Egyptian  versions,  in  how  many  dialects?  What 
versions  of  the  Bible  exist  in  Egypt?  To  what  century  does  the  first 
belong?  How  many  and  what  manuscripts  of  this  dialect  exist? 
What  are  the  advantages  of  this  translation  ?  What  does  the  second 
version  lack  ?  How  do  these  Coptic  versions  differ  from  ours  ?  [See 
note.]  What  part  of  the  Bible  still  exists  in  the  Bashmuric  dialect  ? 
WThere  is  this  version  chiefly  useful  ? 

5.  When  was  the  Ethiopic  version  first  made  ?  What  has  now  dis- 
placed it? 

6.  The  Syriac  versions  :  to  what  family  of  languages  belong  ?  What 
are  the  characteristics  of  the  Syriac  language? 

7.  Name  some  Syriac  versions.  What  is  the  meaning  of  Peshito? 
Which  is  the  earliest  of  these  versions?  "Is  it  complete?  Where  and 
when  was  it  found?  How  old  is  the  Harkel  ?  Where  is  the  best 
manuscript  of  this  version?  What  is  the  date  of  the  Jerusalem  ver- 
sion ?     Describe  it. 

8.  In  what  groups  may  the  Latin  versions  be  classed  ?  How  old  is 
the  first  of  these  groups?     What  is  the  basis  of  this  translation? 

9.  What  three  types  of  the  text  are  indicated  ?  How  many  manu 
scripts  are  in  existence  ? 

10.  Who  undertook  the  revision  of  these  texts,  to  make  the  Vul- 
gate ?  Into  what  did  his  work  develope  ?  How  long  did  he  work 
and  where  ?  What  are  the  names  of  the  two  Psalters  Jerome  made  ? 
How  was  the  whole  Bible  finally  made  up?     How  received? 

11.  What  is  meant  by  the  Sixtine  text?  Its  history  ?  The  Clemen- 
tine text  ?     What  is  the  standard  text  in  the  Roman  Church? 

12.  When  and  by  whom  was  the  Septuagint  version  made?     Why 


204  ANALYSIS  AND   QUESTIONS. 


is  it  called  Septuagint  ?  In  what  language  is  it  ?  Why  is  this  trans- 
lation very  important ?  How  was  it  regarded  by  the  Jews?  By  New 
Testament  writers?  What  version  did  Jesus  often  quote  ?  Describe 
Origen's  Hexapla.     Who  were  Aquila,  Theodotion  and  Symmachus? 

13.  What  is  meant  by  the  Targums?  How  many  are  now  in  exist- 
ence? What  are  they?  How  have  they  been  preserved?  Of  what 
value  are  they  in  reading  the  Old  Testament  ? 


CHAPTER    V. 

ANCIENT    MANUSCRIPTS    OF   THE    BIBLE. 

1.  Upon  what  are  the  oldest  existing  copies  of  the  New  Testament 
written?  Of  what  is  the  parchment  of  the  Sinaitic  manuscript  made  ? 
For  what  is  the  Vatican  manuscript  admired  ?  Upon  what  were  other 
early  copies  of  the  New  Testament  written  ?  Why  have  many 
perished  ?  What  do  the  oldest  manuscripts  contain  beside  the  New 
Testament  ? 

2.  How  are  ancient  manuscripts  of  the  New  Testament  classified? 
What  two  divisions  were  made  by  their  contents?  What  two  by 
their  supposed  age?  How  divided  by  the  style  of  their  writing? 
State  a  more  recent  division. 

3.  How  many  uncial  MSS.  are  now  known  ?  Why  are  they  called 
uncial  ?     How  many  cursives  are  known  ?     Why  so  called  ? 

4.  How  was  the  text  written  in  the  early  MSS.  ?  What  marks  of 
division  were  found  ?  Into  how  many  sections  was  Matthew  divided  ? 
Mark?     Luke?     John?     What  is  said  of  Acts  and  the  Epistles? 

5.  What  is  meant  by  titloi?  Why  not  given  to  the  first  section  in 
each  book  ? 

6.  What  is  meant  by  the  Ammonian  or  Eusebian  sections  ?  How 
many  of  these  sections  were  there  in  each  Gospel  ?  How  did  Eusebius 
classify  them  ? 

7.  To  whom  do  we  owe  the  chapter  divisions  in  our  modern  Bibles? 
To  whom  the  verse  divisions  ? 

8.  Name  the  uncial  manuscripts  mentioned  here.  When,  where 
and  by  whom  was  the  Sinaitic  manuscript  found  ?  Describe  it.  What 
is  the  Codex  Angustanus  ?  Where  may  printed  copies  of  the  Sinaitic 
manuscript  be  seen  ?    What  is  Tischendorf  's  conjecture  about  it  ? 

9.  Of  what  age  is  the  Vatican  MS.  ?  Describe  it.  What  part  of 
the  Bible  does  it  contain  ?  How  is  it  written  ?  What  is  supposed  to 
be  its  origin?  How  long  has  it  been  known  to  modern  scholars? 
Whose  is  the  last  edition  of  this  text  ?  What  is  meant  by  the  Vatican 
manuscript  B.  No.  2066  ? 

10.  Where  is  the  Alexandrian  manuscript?  How  long  has  it  been 
there  ?  Describe  it.  When  and  where  is  it  probable  that  it  was 
written  ?    What  does  it  contain  beside  the  New  Testament  ? 


ANALYSIS    AND   QUESTIONS.  9Q5 


11.  Which  uncial  MS.  is  in  Paris  ?  What  is  meant  by  a  palimpsest  ? 
How  long  has  that  been  known  ?  What  parts  of  the  Bible  are  missing 
from  it  ?     To  what  century  does  it  belong  ? 

12.  What  does  the  Greco-Latin  manuscript  of  Beza  contain?  De- 
scribe it.  Where  is  it  ?  How  long  has  it  been  there  ?  By  whom 
was  it  placed  there? 

13.  What  is  said  of  new  MSS.  ?  What  new  ones  are  mentioned? 
Where  were  they  found  ? 

14.  Why  are  some  mss.  called  cursives  ?  To  what  centuries  do  they 
belong  ?     How  many  are  there  ?     How  classed  ? 

15.  What  is  the  probable  date  of  the  oldest  Hebrew  MS.  i  What 
was  the  rule  of  the  old  Talmudists  regarding  faulty  or  imperfect  manu- 
scripts?    How  many  have  been  found? 

16.  What  are  the  two  classes  of  Hebrew  MSS.  ?  What  rules  governed 
the  copying  of  mss.  for  synagogue  use  ?  What  for  private  use  ?  What 
do  we  owe  to  this  care  ? 

17.  How  was  the  ancient  Hebrew  formerly  supposed  to-  have  been 
written?     How  was  the  true  form  discovered  ? 

18.  What  is  the  Massorah  ?  To  what  do  the  notes  of  the  Massorites 
refer  ?  How  did  they  make  corrections  ?  Did  they  correct  the  text 
itself?  19,  20.  Describe  the  old  Hebrew  text,  divisions,  letters  and 
vowel  points. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

THE   NEW   TESTAMENT  :    HOW  AND   WHEN   ONE  BOOK,  pp.  62-70. 

1.  What  is  said  of  the  New  Testament  as  a  book?  How  were  the 
books  made  up  ?  Was  there  any  single  decree  selecting  the  books  in 
it? 

2.  How  was  the  collection  made?  When  was  the  line  between 
"  sacred  "  and  "  apochryphal "  books  first  sharply  drawn  ?  What  caused 
the  drawing  of  this  line? 

3.  Were  all  books  accepted  with  equal  readiness  ?  How  were 
some  books  finally  admitted?  What  books  were  so  tested  in  the 
Eastern  church?  What  book  was  questioned  in  the  Western  church  ? 
When  was  the  New  Testament  finally  "  closed  "  ? 

4.  How  long  was  it  allowed  to  remain  closed?  Who  revived  the 
discussion  and  on  what  grounds?  What  has  been  the  general  belief 
among  Protestants  in  all  times  ?  What  tests  are  applied  to  a  book  to 
decide  its  right  to  be  considered  one  of  the  sacred  books?  What  did 
Luther  and  Calvin  say  with  regard  to  the  decree  of  a  council  as  a  test 
of  the  sacred  books?     What  creeds  substantially  agree  in  the  tests? 

5.  What  writings  were  not  accepted  ?  What  epistles  were  ex- 
cluded ?  What  gospels  were  excluded  as  spurious?  What  apoc- 
alypse ? 

6.  What  is  the  nature  of  the  declarations  of  Councils  and  the  Fathers 


206  ANALYSIS   AND   QUESTIONS. 

concerning  the  books  ?  What  tests  did  early  Christians  apply  ?  Which 
book  caused  the  Western  church  to  hesitate  ?  Why  did  they  hesitate  ? 
When  was  it  finally  accepted  ?  Whose  studies  lead  to  its  acceptance  7 
How  did  the  Western  church  regard  other  writings  than  those  now  in 
the  New  Testament  ? 

7.  How  many  books  were  early  admitted  by  the  Eastern  church  I 
What  were  they  called  ?  What  were  the  others  called  ?  How  many 
were  there  ?  When  did  Eusebius  write  a  history  of  the  church  ?  What 
does  he  say  of  the  accepted  books?  Which  books  does  he  mention  as 
questioned  ?     Which  were  questioned  by  Origen  ? 

8.  What  light  is  thrown  on  this  research  by  the  Fathers  of  the  first 
four  centuries  ?  What  adds  to  the  value  of  their  testimony?  What 
list  is  given  by  Augustine  ?  By  Athanasius,  Jerome  and  Eusebius  ? 
How  are  citations  made  by  these  writers  ?  What  writers  are  included 
in  this  reference  ? 

9.  Why  were  not  books  of  the  New  Testament  written  sooner? 
Which  two  are  considered  the  first?  What  allusions  were  made  by 
Papias  of  Hierapolis  ?  In  what  books  is  Luke's  influence  traceable? 
When  were  most  of  the  New  Testament  books  written  ?  What  made 
written  instructions  necessary  ?  Were  there  heresies  in  the  early 
church  ?  By  what  name  is  the  New  Testament  called  by  second  cen- 
tury writers  ?  How  early  were  the  twenty  unquestioned  books  col- 
lected as  Scriptures  ? 

10.  Why  were  the  early  Christians  so  careful  in  their  selection  ?  Is 
it  improbable  that  the  Gospels  and  Acts  were  first  combined,  the  others 
being  separate  ?  What  evidence  is  added  by  the  circumstances  under 
which  the  selections  were  made  ?  What  declaration  concerning  them 
was  made  by  the  Council  of  Carthage  ?  Over  what  proportion  was 
there  any  hesitation  ? 

11.  What  advantage  is  there  in  this  gradual  sifting  of  the  writings  ? 
What  promise  of  Christ  was  fulfilled  ? 

12.  By  what  titles  were  some  New  Testament  books  early  called? 
In  what  order  were  they  probably  brought  togethei  ?  How  were 
they  received  ? 

CHAPTER   VII. 

THE    NEW    TESTAMENT. 

1.  How  many  writers  wrote  the  New  Testament  books?  When 
were  they  written?  What  is  said  of  their  character?  Of  their  knowl- 
edge of  languages  ?  Of  how  many  books  are  the  authors  known  ? 
Of  how  many,  not  known  ?     How  are  these  to  be  ascertained  ? 

2.  What  are  the  first  three  Gospels  called  ?  Why  called  "  synoptic  ?  " 
Which  books  were  called  "  Apostolicon  ?  "  Into  how  many  classes 
are  the  New  Testament  books  divided  ?  Name  them.  What  is  said 
of  the  order  of  the  books  ? 


ANALYSIS   AND   QUESTIONS.  207 

3.  What  is  said  of  the  date  of  the  Gospels  and  the  Acts?  Of  the 
dates  of  Paul's  Epistles?  Into  how  many  periods  are  they  divided? 
How  many  years  between  the  periods?  To  what  date  are  the  Catholic 
Epistles  assigned  ? 

4.  Was  Matthew's  Gospel  written  in  Hebrew?  What  evidences 
support  this  view  ?  Was  it  the  same  as  the  "  Gospel  to  the  Hebrews  ?  " 
Have  any  fragments  of  it  been  preserved  ? 

5.  Is  Matthew's  Greek  Gospel  a  translation?  Why  not?  How 
explain  that  the  Gospel  was  written  in  two  languages  ? 

6.  What  was  Matthew's  Gospel  called?  Whose  work  affords  a 
similar  history?  What  does  he  prove?  What  special  things  relate ? 
What  is  his  symbol  ? 

7.  Who  wrote  the  Gospel  of  Mark  ?  Which  Mark?  Whose  secre- 
tary was  Mark  ?  What  does  Papias  say  of  Mark  ?  What  does  Irenaeus 
say?    And  Clement? 

8.  What  are  some  characteristics  of  Mark's  Gospel?  For  whom 
primarily  did  he  write  ?  What  evidences  of  this  are  there  ?  What  is 
said  of  the  last  twelve  verses  ? 

9.  Whose  teachings  does  Luke's  Gospel  represent?  What  evidences 
that  Luke  wrote  it  are  given?  How  many  medical  terms  are  found  in 
Luke  and  Acts  ? 

10.  What  is  said  of  Luke's  vocabulary  ?  Of  matter  that  is  peculiar 
to  his  Gospel  ?  For  whom  was  his  Gospel  primarily  written  ?  What 
portion  of  Christ's  ministry  does  it  specially  give? 

11.  State  some  of  the  evidences  that  John  wrote  the  fourth  Gospel. 
When  was  this  disputed  ?  What  four  facts  are  proved  as  to  the  author 
of  the  fourth  Gospel  in  the  work  itself?  How  answer  the  diversity  of 
character  in  this  Gospel  and  the  Revelation  ? 

12.  Why  called  the  "  Spiritual  Gospel  ?  "  What  does  the  writer  aim 
to  do  ?     What  give,  that  is  peculiar  to  his  Gospel  ? 

13.  To  what  is  "  The  Acts"  a  sequel?  By  whom  written?  How 
proven  that  Luke  was  the  author?  What  is  the  theme  of  the  book? 
About  whom  does  the  first  part  centre  ?  The  second  part  relates  what  ? 
How  end  ? 

14.  How  many  letters  of  Paul  are  surely  given  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment ?  In  what  part  of  his  ministry  written?  In  how  many  groups 
are  they  arranged  ?     How  early  were  these  epistles  recognized  ? 

15.  To  which  group  of  Paul's  Epistles  does  the  letter  to  the  Romans 
belong?  With  what  does  it  begin  ?  State  some  of  the  other  topics  in 
the  letter. 

16.  To  which  group  do  the  letters  to  the  Corinthians  belong?  What 
kind  of  a  city  was  Corinth?  What  did  Paul  rebuke  in  the  Corinthians? 
What  answer  give  in  the  first  letter  ?  What  command  in  his  second 
letter?  For  whom  did  he  urge  contributions?  What  affirm  of 
himself  ? 

17.  To  whom  was  the  Galatian  letter  addressed?      Into  how  many 


208  ANALYSIS  AND  QUESTIONS. 

parts  divided  ?    How  does  Paul  defend  his  apostolic  authority  ?     What 
alone  can  save  ?     How  limit  liberty  ?    In  what  glory? 

18.  Why  is  it  inferred  that  the  letter  to  the  Ephesians  was  general  ? 
For  what  group  of  churches  ?  To  which  group  of  epistles  does  it 
belong?    What  is  its  chief  theme? 

19.  What  proofs  are  there  that  Paul  wrote  the  Philippians?  Where 
was  Paul  when  he  wrote  it?  [In  prison  at  Rome.]  What  incidental 
proof  of  this  is  given  ?  See  Phil.  1  :  13  ;  4 :  22.  What  does  Paul  urge 
upon  the  Philippians  ?    In  what  rejoice  ? 

20.  Why  has  the  authorship  of  Colossians  been  questioned  ?  WThen  ? 
How  answered? 

21.  What  does  this  letter  resemble  in  contents?  W7ho  reconciled 
them  to  God?  What  warnings  does  Paul  give  the  Colossians?  Who 
would  tell  them  of  his  personal  state  ? 

22.  What  strong  evidence  is  there  that  Paul  wrote  Thessalonians  ? 
Why  questioned  ?     How  do  the  questioners  reason  ? 

23.  What  is  the  theme  of  I  Thessalonians  ?  What  does  Paul 
excuse?  Of  what  tell?  How  exhort  them?  For  whose  coming 
to  watch  ? 

24.  What  is  the  purpose  of  2  Thessalonians?  What  does  it  pre- 
dict ?     To  what  refer  ? 

25.  What  are  called  pastoral  epistles  ?  On  what  ground  has  their 
authorship  been  questioned  ?    With  what  result? 

26.  What  does  Paul  in  his  first  letter  instruct  Timothy  to  do  ?  What 
rules  give  ?  What  say  as  to  Timothy's  conduct  and  pastoral  work  ? 

27.  How  does  Paul  speak  of  Timothy  in  his  second  letter  ?  What 
urge?     In  what  rejoice?     How  charge  him? 

28.  Of  what  does  Paul  tell  Titus  ?      With  what   close   his  letter  ? 

29.  In  whose  behalf  was  the  letter  to  Philemon  written  ?  How  was 
he  to  receive  the  runaway  slave? 

30.  What  is  said  of  the  authorship  of  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews  ?  Why 
not  certainly  by  Paul  ?  What  did  Pantsenus  and  Origen  say  of  it  ?  What 
is  the  prevailing  view  now  ?     By  whom  may  it  have  been  written  ? 

31.  What  is  the  theme  of  the  letter?  What  does  the  eleventh 
chapter  contain  ?     What  does  the  entire  letter  aim  to  do  ? 

32.  Which  are  the  "  Catholic  "  Epistles?  Why  called  Catholic?  To 
which  letters  first  applied  ?  How  many  were  among  the  antilegomena  ? 
Why  so  termed  ?    When  were  they  universally  accepted  ? 

2^.  Which  James  wrote  that  epistle  ?  Why  not  known  ?  To  whom 
was  it  addressed  ?  By  whom  first  accepted  ?  Why  did  Luther  question 
it?     When  written  ? 

34.  Why  called  N.  T.  "  book  of  Proverbs  ?  "  What  is  the  theme  ? 
What  does  it  urge  for  the  sick  ? 

35.  For  whom  was  I  Peter  written  ?     About  when  ? 

36.  What  does  it  aim  to  give  ?  In  what  way  ?  How  urge  Christians 
to  live  ? 


ANALYSIS   AND   QUESTIONS.  209 

37.  After  what  kind  of  examination  was  2  Peter  accepted  ?  What 
are  two  leading  views  as  to  its  authorship?  What  evidences  show  it  is 
not  a  forgery  ? 

38.  How  many  epistles  of  John  are  in  the  New  Testament?  By 
whom  was  the  first  epistle  used?  In  what  lists  are  the  three  found? 
With  what  do  the  contents  of  the  first  epistle  agree  ?  To  whom  was 
the  second  epistle  addressed  ?  WThat  express  ?  To  whom  was  the  third 
epistle  addressed  ?     How  does  John  commend  Caius? 

39.  What  proofs  are  cited  that  Jude  wrote  the  epistle  bearing  his 
name  ?  Which  Jude  was  it  ?  Why  uncertain  ?  What  other  letter  does 
his  epistle  resemble  ?  How  is  it  explained  ?  How  does  the  writer 
warn  his  readers  ?    In  what  urge  them  to  keep  ? 

40.  Who  wrote  the  book  of  Revelation  ?  What  proofs  of  this  are 
given  ?  Why  questioned  ?  How  can  the  differences  between  John's 
Gospel  and  Revelation  be  accounted  for  ? 

41.  What  are  the  seven  themes  or  topics  of  Revelation?  How  in- 
terpreted ?  What  is  the  first  group  of  interpretations?  The  second  ? 
The  third  ?  How  may  the  book  be  regarded  ?  What  to  do  ?  How 
does  the  New  Testament  close  ?  What  table  is  given  ?  Can  you  give 
the  approximate  date  of  each  N.  T.  book  ?  Where  written  ?  And 
the  topic  of  each  book  ? 

CHAPTER    VIII. 

THE   OLD    TESTAMENT. 

1.  Of  what  were  the  Old  Testament  books  the  outgrowth  ?  How 
long  did  it  take  to  write  them  ?     When  was  the  collection  completed  ? 

2.  How  long  ago  were  groups  of  Hebrew  Scriptures  recognized  ? 
What  were  the  three  parts  called  ?  Who  mentioned  them  ?  How  long 
before  the  Christian  era  ?  How  are  the  divisions  spoken  of  in  the  New 
Testament?     How  early  and  by  whom  was  the  Law  taught  or  read  ? 

3.  What  translation  was  used  at  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era? 
What  other  writings  were  placed  with  the  Septuagint  ?  Why  was 
this  Greek  version  called  the  Septuagint  ?  What  class  of  books  were 
not  placed  with  the  Septuagint  ?     What  can  be  inferred  from  this  ? 

4.  What  questions  came  before  the  Synod  of  Jamnia  ?  When  ? 
What  did  the  Synod  decide?  By  what  facts  decide  it?  What  does 
the  dissent  of  Samaritans  indicate  ?  How  is  the  decision  confirmed  by 
the  Mishna?  How  did  they  count  the  books?  What  proves  that 
their  24  included  all  our  39  books  ? 

5.  Whose  testimony  is  cited?  What  does  Josephus  say?  How 
many  books  does  he  count  ?  In  what  way  did  he  join  books  together? 
Why?  How  many  letters  are  there  in  the  Hebrew  alphabet?  What 
books  did  the  Samaritans  accept  ?  Why  reject  others  ?  Did  Josephus 
or  Philo  use  apocryphal  books  as  of  divine  authority? 


210  ANALYSIS   AND    QUESTIONS. 

6.  Who  attempted  to  destroy  the  Jewish  sacred  books?  Who 
gathered  them  together  again  ?  What  does  historic  tradition  say  of  the 
formation  of  the  Old  Testament  ?     When  was  it  probably  formed  ? 

7.  What  groups  of  Old  Testament  Scriptures  do  New  Testament 
writers  recognize  ?  What  did  Christ  call  the  Hebrew  writings  which 
he  quoted  ?    What  does  this  imply  ? 

8.  How  many  Old  Testament  books  are  quoted  in  the  New  ?  Are 
these  quotations  from  one  or  from  all  the  groups  ?  What  do  these 
quotations  indicate  ? 

9.  Is  the  Hebrew  order  of  Old  Testament  books  the  same  as  ours  ? 
How  many  variations  in  the  text  have  been  found  ?  Are  they  im- 
portant? State  the  most  common  Hebrew  order  of  the  books.  With 
what  book  does  the  Hebrew  Bible  end  ?  On  what  does  this  throw 
light? 

10.  What  is  the  oldest  catalogue  of  O.  T.  books  known?  What 
does  it  include  ?  What  other  catalogues  are  mentioned  ?  How  do  lists 
in  the  Latin  church  vary?  To  what  books  were  the  catalogues  of  the 
early  Latin  fathers  limited?  What  exception  is  noted  ?  What  state- 
ment shows  that  Augustine  was  not  a  real  exception  ?  What  is  the 
testimony  of  Cardinals  Ximenes  and  Cajetan  ?  To  what  did  the  Re- 
formers appeal  ?  What  probably  led  the  Latin  church  formally  to 
accept  the  apocryphal  books  as  sacred  Scriptures  ? 

11.  What  books  did  the  early  Christians  agree  in  excluding  from  the 
Scriptures  ?  How  were  the  apocryphal  books  used  by  the  Greek 
Christians?  What  did  they  generally  assert?  What  is  said  of  the 
practice  in  the  Greek  church  ?  What  of  the  usage  of  the  Latin 
church?  What  did  the  Council  of  Trent,  1546,  decree?  Why  was 
appeal  to  Scriptures  useless  after  that  decree?  What  is  the  position  of 
Protestant  churches  on  the  Scriptures?  How  do  they  regard  the 
apocryphal  books?  State  the  position  of  the  Lutherans.  The  Church 
of  England.  The  Belgic  Confession.  The  controversy  in  the  British 
Bible  Society.  What  is  said  to  be  the  excellence  of  the  Protestant 
churches  on  this  question  ? 


CHAPTER    IX. 

THE    BOOKS    OF   THE    LAW. 

What  did  the  Hebrews  call  the  five  books  of  the  law  ?  When 
were  they  written  as  one,  and  when  as  five  books  ? 

1.  What  name  is  often  given  to  these  books  ?  What  is  its  derivation  ? 
By  what  names  did  the  Hebrews  call  them  ?  Upon  what  is  the  unity 
of  these  books  based?     How  are  they  connected  in  the  original? 

2.  What  differences  of  opinion  as  to  the  division  of  these  books  aie 
mentioned  ?  How  did  Christ  speak  of  them  ?  Whence  are  their 
English  titles  derived  ?     What  is  the  meaning  of  each  name  ?     What 


ANALYSIS  AND   QUESTIONS.  9^ 

were  their  Hebrew  titles?  What  were  the  larger  Hebrew  sections 
called?  How  were  these  again  subdivided?  How  often  were  the 
selections  from  the  Law  read  ?  Designate  broadly  each  of  the  books 
by  its  contents. 

3.  By  whom  were  these  books  written  ?  By  whom  is  the  question 
of  authorship  reopened?  To  whom  would  these  critics  ascribe  them? 
How  early  was  this  inquiry  raised  ?  What  was  Astruc's  theory  ?  What 
was  the  "fragmentary  "  theory  ?  What  is  a  third  theory  mentioned  ? 
What  general  division  of  the  Pentateuch  is  made  by  this  "  newer  criti- 
cism ?  "  What  differences  of  opinion  have  been  expressed  as  to  the 
date  of  the  Pentateuch  ? 

4.  Is  there  a  definite  avowal  of  authorship  of  the  whole  Pentateuch? 
Quote  verses  to  show  that  Moses  was  the  author  of  at  least  a  large  part 
of  the  work.  In  what  person  is  the  book  written  ?  What  event  is 
recorded  in  Deut.  34?  What  is  the  object  of  the  writings  ?  What  do 
they  contain  besides  the  fulfilment  of  this  object?  What  form  would 
be  most  natural  for  the  authentic  record  of  the  origin  of  the  race?  Is 
knowledge  of  the  writer  of  government  annals  of  great  importance  ? 
Why  not?  What  would  be  expected  of  Moses  as  the  great  lawgiver 
of  Israel  ?  What  is  the  testimony  of  Hebrew  writers  as  to  his  having 
done  so? 

5.  What  evidences  in  the  books  themselves  against  their  Mosaic 
authorship  are  urged  ? 

6.  What  does  the  general  Mosaic  origin  of  the  Pentateuch  account 
for?  What  does  not  imply?  Is  Moses  responsible  for  its  divisions 
into  five  books?  Or  into  chapters  ?  Or  into  sections?  Does  this  pre- 
clude the  use  of  early  documents?  Or  the  growth  of  the  ritual  ?  To 
what  does  the  other  theory  lead  ? 

What  must  be  accounted  for  on  any  theory  ?  What  is  said  of  the 
civilization  of  Egypt  in  the  Mosaic  era  ?  What  is  the  evidence  from 
language  ?  Is  the  religious  system  copied  from  the  Egyptian  ?  What 
peculiarities  of  the  worship  indicate  the  wilderness  life  ?  Are  there 
many  characteristics  of  later  speech  in  the  language  of  the  Pentateuch? 
What  accounts  for  the  differences  between  earlier  and  later  portions  ? 
What  is  said  of  New  Testament  evidence?  What  is  said  of  recent 
explorations?     State  the  topics  of  each  of  the  five  books. 

CHAPTER   X. 

HISTORICAL    (O.  T.)    BOOKS:    AUTHORSHIP   AND    COMPOSITION. 

How  many  historical  books  are  there  in  the  Old  Testament?  In 
what  order  do  they  come  in  the  English  Bible  ?  Which  is  first  and 
which  last  ? 


212  ANALYSIS    AND    QUESTIONS. 

i.  What  is  the  Hebrew  order?  Which  were  called  the  Earlier 
Prophets,  and  why  ?  How  were  the  other  six  books  placed  ?  Which 
were  the  closing  books  ? 

2.  How  many  years  are  covered  by  these  books  ?  What  event  opens 
and  what  closes  the  period  ?  Into  how  many  periods  can  the  time  be 
divided?  What  are  they?  Into  what  five  periods  may  the  time  be 
divided?     Give  the  portions  of  the  text  included  in  each  period. 

3.  Who  are  mentioned  by  Jewish  tradition  as  the  chief  writers  of 
these  books  ? 

4.  Whence  does  the  book  of  Joshua  derive  its  name  ?  What  do 
modern  critics  say  concerning  it?  To  whom  do  tradition  and  reverent 
scholars  assign  its  authorship  ?  When  do  they  think  it  was  composed  ? 
How  can  the  clauses  urged  to  prove  a  later  date  be  accounted  for  ?  Of 
what  importance  is  this  book  to  the  Bible  student? 

5.  Whence  does  Judges  take  its  name?  How  many  judges  were 
there  ?  How  long  was  this  period  ?  What  reference  is  made  by  Paul 
to  this  period  ?  To  whom  does  the  Talmud  ascribe  this  book  ?  Whence 
was  it  gathered  ?  for  what  reason  ?  What  are  the  difficulties  of  the 
book  ? 

6.  When  did  Ruth  live  ?  When  was  the  book  probably  written  ? 
Where  is  it  placed  in  the  Hebrew  Bible  ?  What  is  its  historical  value  ? 
What  is  the  Jewish  tradition  concerning  its  writer  ?  Are  the  arguments 
against  an  early  date  tenable  ? 

7.  How  were  the  two  books  of  Samuel  originally  written  ?  How  were 
the  books  of  Samuel  and  Kings  divided  by  the  Septuagint  ?  When 
was  this  division  introduced  into  Hebrew  Bibles  ?  What  is  known  of 
the  author  of  I  and  2  Samuel  ?  Whence  arises  the  name  ?  Why  could 
Samuel  not  have  written  both?  Mention  some  national  songs  incor- 
porated into  the  work.     What  is  its  date  ?     State  some  difficulties. 

8.  What  history  do  the  two  books  of  Kings  continue  ?  Whom  does 
Jewish  tradition  name  as  the  author  of  Kings  ?  Who  else  has  been 
named  ?  Do  they  refer  to  older  documents  ?  What  is  their  probable 
date?  Wrhat  new  light  has  recently  been  thrown  on  the  dynasties 
mentioned  by  these  books  ?     What  difficulties  are  there  ? 

9.  Where  were  the  Chronicles  originally  placed  ?  What  is  the 
Hebrew  title  ?  What  does  the  Septuagint  call  them  ?  Who  named 
them  Chronicles  ?  By  whom  were  they  probably  written  ?  Why  were 
they  written  ?  What  do  they  contain  confirmatory  of  the  Pentateuch  ? 
What  date  is  assigned  to  them  ?  How  many  sources  are  named  in 
them?  Mention  them.  What  value  have  the  numerous  references  to 
other  sources  ? 

10.  Where  was  Ezra  placed  in  the  Hebrew  Bible  ?  What  names 
are  given  to  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  in  the  Septuagint  ?  In  the  Vulgate  ? 
Who  was  the  author  of  Ezra  ?     When  was  it  written  ? 

11.  Where  is  AWiemiah  in  the  Hebrew  Bible?  Who  wrote  it? 
What   doubts  are  there  as  to  its  authorship  ?     What  peculiarities  are 


ANALYSTS   AND   QUESTIONS.  213 

mentioned  in  its  language  ? 

12.  To  what  era  does  Esther  belong  ?  What  peculiarity  is  noted  in 
it  ?  Why  ?  When  written  ?     Who  are  named  as  the  probable  authors  ? 

13.  What  is  said  of  the  twelve  historical  books? 

*    14.  What  has  been  boldly  denied  ?     How  have  the  statements  been 
reaffirmed  of  late?     By  what  classes  of  scientific  persons? 

15.  W'ho  denied  the  existence  of  ancient  cities  named  in  the  Bible? 
About  how  long  ago  ?    How  has  their  existence  been  proved  ? 

16.  What  was  asserted  of  writing  in  the  age  of  Moses?  How  long 
since  ?  What  has  now  been  proved  as  to  the  era  of  writing  ?  How 
was  it  proved  ?    What  assumptions  are  thus  proved  to  be  false  ? 

17.  What  used  to  be  said  of  the  existence  of  a  Hittite  nation?  In 
what  way  were  these  assertions  proved  false  ?  What  does  this  show 
as  to  the  historical  accuracy  of  the  Biblical  books  ? 

18.  What  attempts  have  recently  been  made  respecting  Hebrew 
civil  history?  Why  are  literature  and  religion  made  an  exception? 
Are  they  likely  to  prove  exceptions  to  the  general  rule  ?  Is  this  known 
of  any  other  nation  ? 

CHAPTER    XL 

HEBREW    POETRY    AND    POETICAL    BOOKS. 

1.  What  is  a  leading  characteristic  of  the  Oriental  mind?  Were 
the  Hebrew  people  affected  by  these  feelings  ?  What  portion  of  the 
Old  Testament  is  poetry  ?  How  does  Hebrew  poetry  differ  from  that 
of  other  nations  ? 

2.  Why  is  there  no  epic  poetry  among  them  ?  What  kinds  of  poe- 
try were  written  in  Hebrew  ?  How  does  it  compare  with  other 
poetry  ? 

3.  Are  rhyme  and  meter  found  in  Hebrew  poetry  ?  What  attempts 
have  been  made  to  find  them  ?     Have  they  succeeded  ? 

4.  Of  what  does  Hebrew  poetry  consist  chiefly  ?  Name  and  define 
the  three  kinds  of  parallelisms. 

5.  Are  alliteration  and  assonance  used?  What  kind  of  language  is 
used  by  these  writers  ? 

6.  How  many  poetical  books  are  there  in  the  Old  Testament  ? 
Name  them.  Are  these  the  only  ones  that  contain  poetry?  Mention 
five  of  the  most  noted  songs  outside  of  these  books. 

7.  Which  is  the  earliest  specimen  of  poetry  in  the  Old  Testament? 
How  many  songs  are  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testament?  How  many 
are  found  in  the  New  Testament  ?  Mention  them.  Where  are  they 
found  ? 

8.  Where  is  the  book  of  Psalms  in  the  Hebrew  Bible?  Which 
books  were  regarded   as  preeminently  poetical  ?     What  names  have 


214  ANALYSIS   AND   QUESTIONS. 

been  given  to  the  Psalms  ?     Whence  is  the  name  Psalms  derived? 

9.  How  are  the  Psalms  divided  in  the  Hebrew  ?  How  are  these 
divisions  marked  ?  What  are  the  groups  ?  To  what  have  the  topics 
of  the  Psalms  been  compared  ?  How  old  is  this  division  ?  What  sugges- 
tions have  been  made  as  to  the  reasons  for  its  existence?  How  many 
Psalms  are  quoted  in  the  New  Testament  ? 

10.  Were  the  titles  of  the  Psalms  made  by  their  authors?  To  how  many 
are  they  attached  ?  What  name  is  given  by  the  Talmud  to  the  others  ? 
How  many  Psalms  are  ascribed  to  David  ?  To  whom  are  the  others 
assigned?  How  many  are  anonymous  ?  To  whom  does  the  Septua- 
gint  ascribe  the  127th?  the  146th  ?  the  147th?  What  famous  ones  are 
anonymous  ?     What  is  said  of  the  Hallel  Songs? 

11.  How  are  the  Psalms  divided  by  their  contents?  How  many 
alphabetic  Psalms  are  there?     Mention  other  classifications. 

12.  Can  the  dates  of  the  Psalms  be  determined  ?  Of  which  can  this 
be  done  ?  What  objections  are  made  to  assigning  some  to  the 
Maccabean  era  ? 

13.  What  is  said  of  the  topics  of  the  Psalms?  Under  what  general 
topics  are  they  grouped  ? 

14.  What  is  said  of  the  study  of  "Wisdom  Literature?"  Which 
books  of  the  Bible  are  so  classed  ?  What  other  books  are  sometimes 
put  into  a  similar  class  ? 

15.  Has  the  book  of  Proverbs  a  tide  ?  State  what  titles.  What 
is  said  of  these  Proverbs  ?  Into  how  many  books  or  sections  are  they 
divided  ? 

16.  State  the  structure  of  some  proverbs  and  how  many  varieties  of 
forms  are  noted. 

17.  Who  were  the  authors  of  the  book  of  Proverbs?  What  is  said 
of  their  origin  and  collection  ? 

18.  What  is  the  book  of  Job  called  ?  To  whom  was  the  book  early 
ascribed  ?  To  whom  in  later  times  ?  What  new  suggestion  is  made  as 
to  its  origin  ? 

19.  What  is  said  of  its  structure?     Give  an  outline  of  the  book. 

20.  What  question  does  the  book  of  Job  attempt  to  answer?  What 
does  its  arguments  show  ?  Was  Job  a  real  person  ?  By  whom 
named  ? 

21.  By  whom  was  the  book  believed  to  be  real  history?  How  do 
some  modern  critics  regard  it  ?     May  both  be  partly  right  ? 

22.  What  is  said  of  the  structure  of  "  Solomon's  Song  ?  "  By  whom 
written  according  to  ancient  historic  testimony  ?  What  objections  are 
made  to  this?     Are  they  conclusive? 

23.  Into  what  divisions  is  the  song  grouped  ?  How  interpreted  ? 
State  the  chief  lines  of  interpretation.  What  moral  lesson  is  it  believed 
to  teach? 


ANALYSIS  AND   QUESTIONS.  215 

24.  How  are  Lamentations  described  ?  What  kind  of  poems  form 
the  first  four  chapters?     What  is  the  topic  of  the  book  ? 

25.  Is  Ecclesiastes  poetry  or  prose  ?  Where  is  it  placed  ?  What  is 
found  in  chapter  3  ?    Is  the  authorship  settled  ?     What  is  its  theme  ? 

CHAPTER   XII. 

PROPHECY  AND  THE  PROPHETICAL  BOOKS. 

What  phrase  usually  marks  prophecy  in  the  Bible  ?  In  how  many 
literary  forms  is  it  found  ? 

1.  How  may  the  term  prophet  be  defined?  How  early  were  schools 
of  the  prophets  formed  ?  Were  all  prophets  called  from  this  trained 
class  ? 

2.  Into  how  many  periods  may  the  mission  of  Hebrew  prophets  be 
divided  ?  Name  the  periods.  Into  what  periods  are  the  four  centuries 
of  prophetic  silence  divided  ? 

3.  In  considering  prophecy  what  three  distinctions  are  suggested  ? 
Have  we  probably  a  large  or  small  portion  of  spoken  prophecy  ? 
What  are  the  books  from  Joshua  to  Kings  called  ?  What  are  the 
books  from  Isaiah  to  Malachi  called  ?  What  prophet  is  excepted  ? 
Are  these  books  chiefly  poetry  or  prose  ?  Into  what  two  groups  are 
they  divided?  Which  are  the  major  prophets?  Why  so  called? 
Name  the  minor  prophets. 

4.  In  what  reigns  did  Isaiah  prophesy  ?  What  does  Isaiah  mean  ? 
Into  how  many  parts  is  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah  divided  ?  What  nar- 
rative connects  the  two  parts  ?  Into  how  many  sections  or  prophecies 
is  the  first  part  of  Isaiah  divided  ?  What  is  the  theme  of  the  second 
part  ?  Into  how  many  steps  or  phases  is  it  subdivided  ?  What  phrase 
marks  a  triple  division  of  the  second  part  ?  What  great  theme  runs 
through  the  entire  book  ? 

5.  To  whom  has  the  entire  book  been  ascribed  ?  By  whom  ?  How 
many  authors  have  been  suggested  for  this  book  in  recent  times  ?  By 
what  arguments  is  the  plurality  of  authors  for  Isaiah  supported  ?  How 
is  the  unity  of  authorship  for  Isaiah  negatively  maintained  ?  On  what 
five  grounds  urged  positively  ?  Is  it  likely  that  a  great  writer  like  the 
conjectured  "Second  Isaiah"  would  be  forgotten?  Is  the  question 
of  the  authorship  of  Isaiah  settled  ?  What  can  be  surely  said  of  the 
authority  of  the  book  ? 

6.  How  has  the  prophecy  of  Jeremiah  been  divided  ?  By  what 
phrase  is  the  book  attested  ?  How  many  times  is  it  used  in  the  first 
three  chapters  ?  Who  recorded  a  portion  of  the  book  ?  At  whose 
dictation?  Of  what  does  the  "  fourth  part"  consist?  What  is  said  of 
his  style  ?  What  is  Jeremiah  called  ?  What  earlier  book  does  his 
prophecies  resemble  ?  In  what  period  did  he  prophecy  ?  For  how 
long  ?     Where  did  he  live  ? 


216  ANALYSIS   AND    QUESTIONS. 

7.  What  is  the  meaning  of  Ezekiel  ?  What  did  Jerome  call  his 
prophecies  ?  In  what  order  are  they  arranged  ?  In  how  many  ways 
has  the  book  been  interpreted  ?  Of  what  family  was  Ezekiel  ?  Where 
live  in  exile  ?  When  were  his  prophecies  recorded  ?  In  what  do  they 
abound  ? 

8.  Where  was  the  book  of  Daniel  placed  in  the  Hebrew  Bible  ? 
In  what  other  language  than  Hebrew  was  it  partly  written  ?  What 
portion  is  in  Aramaic  ?  How  are  the  contents  divided  ?  How  many 
visions  are  recorded  ? 

9.  Who  is  said  to  have  seen  the  visions  of  the  book?  To  whom 
is  the  entire  book  ascribed  ?  By  whom  is  this  questioned?  For  what 
reasons?  Why  are  the  reasons  held  by  others  to  be  inconclusive? 
What  reason  is  given  for  the  position  of  the  book  in  the  Hebrew  Bible  ? 
How  is  the  argument  from  silence  answered  ?  How  may  the  historic 
allusions  be  used  ?  On  what  five  grounds  is  it  still  urged  that  Daniel 
is  the  probable  author  ?  What  have  modern  discoveries  already  shown  ? 
What  is  it  fair  to  infer  from  this  ?  How  had  the  Aramaic  long  been 
used  ?    For  what  may  we  wait  ? 

10.  How  many  are  the  minor  prophets  ?  Name  them.  What  are 
some  of  their  chief  characteristics  ? 

11.  Who  was  the  last  great  prophet  of  the  northern  kingdom? 
What  is  the  meaning  of  Hosea?  How  long  was  his  mission  ?  How 
are  his  prophecies  divided?  What  is  said  of  their  interpretation?  In 
how  many  ways  have  they  been  interpreted?  What  is  said  of  his 
style  ?     Where  is  the  prophecy  cited  ? 

12.  What  judgments  are  declared  by  Joel?  In  what  two  parts? 
What  apostle  cites  this  prophecy  ?     Where  and  how  ? 

13.  What  is  the  chief  character  of  Amos'  prophecy  ?  How  divided  ? 
What  kind  of  a  manual  has  it  been  called  ?  What  was  Amos'  occu- 
pation ?  By  whom  called  to  be  a  prophet  ?  What  is  said  of  the  style 
and  character  of  his  prophecies  ? 

14.  Concerning  whom  did  Obadiah  prophecy?  Of  what  feud  does 
it  remind  us  ?     What  kind  of  a  prophecy  is  it  called  ? 

15.  What  has  the  book  of  Jonah  been  termed  ?  What  is  the  theme 
of  each  of  its  four  chapters  ?  Why  has  its  authorship  by  Jonah  been 
questioned  ?  Was  Jonah  a  real  prophet  ?  How  is  the  book  char- 
acterized by  some  modern  critics  ?  Who  cited  the  chief  event  in  the 
book  as  a  type  of  himself? 

16.  What  type  of  prophecy  is  that  of  Micah?  What  simple  di- 
vision of  the  book  is  suggested  ?  In  what  does  it  abound  ?  Why  do 
some  question  whether  Micah  was  its  author  ?     How  is  this  met  ? 

17.  Of  what  does  the  prophecy  of  Nahum  consist?  The  downfall 
of  what  city  does  it  describe  ?  In  what  rank  does  it  stand  as  to  poetic 
imagery  and  vivid  force  ?     What  is  known  of  the  prophet  ? 

18.  What  is  the  chief  theme  of  Habakkuk  ?,    What  does  Lowth  call 


ANALYSIS   AND   QUESTIONS.  217 

his  prophecy  ?     Where  does  Paul  cite  from  it  ?     What  did  this  phrase 
become  ?     What  is  said  of  the  date  of  it  ? 

19.  What  has  the  prophecy  of  Zephaniah  been  called  ?  What  great 
hymn  is  based  on  it  ?    When  did  he  prophesy  ? 

20.  What  was  the  object  of  Haggai's  prophecy  ?  To  what  four 
things  does  his  prophecy  relate  ?    What  allusion  make  to  Christ? 

21.  How  many  visions  are  there  in  the  first  part  of  the  prophecy  of 
Zechariah?  To  what  subjects  does  the  second  part  relate?  Which 
part  is  certainly  believed  to  be  by  Zechariah  ?  To  whom  do  some 
ascribe  the  second  part  ?  On  what  grounds?  How  possibly  may  these 
facts  be  explained  ?  What  essenlial  thought  runs  through  the 
prophecy  ? 

22.  Which  is  the  last  prophet  of  the  Old  Testament  ?  Into  how 
many  discourses  is  his  prophecy  divided  ?  What  does  Malachi  plainly 
foretell  ?  With  what  does  he  close  ?  How  many  centuries  of 
prophetic  silence  followed  ?  By  what  glorious  advent  were  they 
broken  ? 

CHAPTER   XIII. 

I.  What  marks  a  form  of  speech  as  a  distinct  language?  Why 
difficult  to  apply  the  definition  ?  How  many  languages  are  there  in 
the  world  ?      How  many  dialects  ? 

2.  Why  is  it  difficult  to  state  the  number  of  languages  into  which  the 
Bible  has  been  translated  ?  How  many  types  of  written  characters  are 
there  ?  How  many  versions  have  been  found  to  be  erroneously  enu- 
merated up  to  this  time  ?  Into  how  many  tongues  had  the  Bible  been 
translated  up  to  the  nineteenth  century? 

3.  How  many  languages  now  have  some  one  entire  book  of  the 
Bible?  What  portion  of  the  human  race  is  reached  by  these  versions? 
What  is  said  of  the  work  yet  to  be  done  ? 

4.  How  were  copies  of  the  Scriptures  early  made  for  circulation  ? 
What  is  said  of  the  circulation  of  the  Syrian  versions?  Of  the  Latin 
Vulgate  ?  How  many  copies  of  Luther's  first  version  were  issued  ? 
How  many  editions  of  the  English  Bible  before  1611  ?  Name  some 
of  the  first  printed  Bibles  in  America. 

5.  What  is  said  of  the  circulation  of  the  Bible  in  the  early  part  of 
the  nineteenth  century  ?  Of  the  issues  of  the  Revised  New  Testa- 
ment? Of  the  copies  issued  by  the  Bible  societies?  Of  the  issues 
within  the  century  ? 

6.  How  many  copies  are  annually  sent  out  by  the  British  and  Foreign 
Bible  Society  ?  By  the  American  Bible  Society  ?  What  is  computed 
to  be  the  total  annual  circulation  now  ?  What  is  said  of  the  trust- 
worthy nature  of  these  figures  ?  How  long  would  it  require  to  provide 
each  family  in  the  world  with  the  gospel  ? 


218  ANALYSIS  AND  QUESTIONS. 

CHAPTER    XIV. 

CARE   OF   BIBLE   TEXT. 

1.  What  did  the  Jews  note  concerning  their  Scripture  text  besides 
the  number  of  books  ? 

2.  What  table  is  given  in  section  two? 

3.  How  did  the  Massoretes  number  the  words  and  letters  of  the 
Hebrew  text  ? 

4.  What  did  their  minuteness  lead  some  to  do  for  the  text  of  the 
English  Bible  ?  State  the  number  of  books,  chapters  and  verses  in  the 
English  Bible. 

5.  How  many  Greek  words  are  there  in  the  text  of  the  first  three 
Gospels?  How  many  Greek  words  are  used  in  the  Pauline  writings? 
How  many  by  Luke  ? 

6.  What  is  the  number  of  Greek  words  in  the  vocabulary  of  Luke's 
Gospel?     How  many  in  the  first  three  Gospels? 


INDEX. 


Acts,  81,  82. 

Alexandrian  MS.,  58.     See  MSS. 

Alliteration,  see  Hebrew  Poetry. 

American  Standard  Version,  13. 

Amos,  175. 

Ancient  MSS.,  53,  ff. 

Ancient  Versions,  44,  ff. 

Anglo-American  Versions,  12,  ff. 

Anglo-Saxon  Versions,  34. 

Anglo-Saxon  in  the  Bible,  35. 

Aramaic  language,  10. 

Armenian   translations  (see    Versions), 

44- 
Authorship  of  Gospels  and  Acts,  73-82. 
Authorized  Version,  why  so  called,  13, 


Barker,  R.  Printer,  21,  22. 
Beza's  MSS.,  59. 
Books  of  the  Bible,  9. 
Books  of  the  Law,  115,  ff. 

authorship  of,  116,  ff. 

composition  of,  118. 

division  of,  115. 

Mosaic  authorship  of,  120,  ff. 

name  of,  115. 
Bible,  Alexandrian  (written)    58. 

Anglo-American,  12. 

Anglo-Saxon,  34. 

Armenian,  44. 

Authorized  Version  of,  13,  22. 

Biblia  by  Chaucer,  8. 

Bishops',  27. 

Books,  number  of,  9. 

Cambridge  Paragraph,  23. 

chapters  and  verses  in,  196. 

circulation  of,  188,  190. 

Coptic,  45. 

Coverdale's,  30. 

Cranmer's,  30. 

Danish,  43. 

divisions  of,  55,  116,  126,  139,  158. 

Douai,  26. 

Dutch,  40. 

Egyptian,  45. 

English,  facts  about,  35. 


Bible,  Ethiopic,  46. 

French,  41. 

Genevan,  28,  29. 

German,  37. 

Gothic,  45. 

Great,  29,  30. 

greatest  book,  7. 

growth  of,  11. 

Greek  Septuagin.t,  50. 

Hebrew,  9,  51,  60,  98,  114,  126,  195. 

Holy,  English  title,  21. 

Italian,  42. 

King  James,  17-25. 
Revision  of,  14. 

languages  translated  into,  183-186. 

Latin,  48. 

Luther's,  38,  39. 

Matthew's,  31. 

nations  swayed  by,  7. 

Polychrome,  63. 

Purvey's,  33. 

preservation  of,  11. 

Questions  about,  9. 

Sinaitic  (written),  53. 

Societies,  183,  passim. 

Spanish,  42. 

Swedish,  43. 

Syriac,  46,  47. 

Tavemer's,  31 

title,  used  by  Chaucer,  7. 

Tyndale's,  31. 

Vatican  (written),  57. 

Vulgate,  47,  48. 

Whitechurch's,  30. 

Wyckliffe's,  32. 
Bible  Societies: 

American,  187-194,  et  passim. 

British  and  Foreign,  114,  185-194 
Bible,  versions  of,  186. 

Catholic  Epistles,  89. 

Chronicles,  130. 

Cities,  ancient,  restored,  135. 

Colossians,  85. 

Coptic  or  Egyptian  Versions,  45. 

Corinthians,  83,  84. 

(219) 


220 


INDEX. 


Covenant,  a  title,  8. 

book  of,  8. 
Coverdale's  Bible,  30. 
Cranmer's  Bible,  30. 
Cursive  MSS.,  tbe,  he 


written,  60. 


Daniel,  book  of,  170-173. 
Danish  Version,  43. 
Date  of  N.  T.  books,  96. 
Deuteronomy  (see  Pentateuch),  118,  125. 
Douai  Version,  the,  26. 
Dutch  Versions,  40. 

Eastern  Church  on  N.  T.  books,  67. 

Ecclesiastes,  156. 

Ephesians,  (see  Pauline  EpS.),  84. 

Ephraem  MSS.,  58. 

Epistles,  Catholic,  89. 

Esther,  133. 

Ethiopic  Versions,  46. 

Exodus  (see  Pentateuch),  125. 

Ezekiel,  i6g 

Ezra,  132. 

Fac-Simile — 

Tyndale's  New  Testament. 

Frontispiece 
King  James'  Version,  20,  21. 
Great  Bible,  29, 30. 
Matt.  13  :  1-15,  Tyndale,  31-32. 
Isaiah,  Chap.  13.  Tyndale,  33,34. 
early  English  MS.  Bible,  33,  34. 
Rushworth  Gospels,  34. 
Fourth  Cent    Codex  Smaiticus,  56. 
Fifth  Cent.  Codex  Alexandrinus.  58. 

Galatians  (see  Pauline  Eps.),  84. 
Genesis  (see  Pentateueh),  116-125. 
Gospels,  Synoptic,  75,  76. 
Gothic  Versions,  45. 
Greek  language.  10. 

Scptuagint,  50,  100. 

words,  197. 

Habakkuk,  178. 
Haggai,  179. 
Hebrew  MS.  (see  MS. 


60. 


poetry,  139. 
alliteration  in,  140. 
early  songs  in,  list  of, 
forms  of,  139. 
Orientals'  delight  in, 
parallelisms  of,  140. 
rhyme  and  metre  in,  1 
letters,  195. 
text,  61. 

vowel  points,  63. 
sections,  62. 
Hebrews,  book  of,  88,  89 


Hebrew  poetry,  140. 

songs,  141. 
Historical  O.  T.  books,  126. 

authors  of,  127,  ff. 

general  character,  134. 

order  of,  in  Hebrew,  126. 

period  covered  by,  126. 

proved  by  discoveries,  137. 
Hittites,  Empire  of,  136. 
Hosea,  174. 

Isaiah,  book  of,  161,  ff. 
Italian  versions,  42. 

Jamnia,  Synod  of,  101,  104. 
James,  Epistle  of,  90. 
Jeremiah,  167,  ff. 

Lamentations  of,  155. 
Job,  book  of,  149-153. 
Joel,  174. 

John's  Epistles,  93. 
John,  Gospel  by,  80,  81. 
Jonah, 176. 

Josephiis,  testimony  of,  102. 
Joshua,  127. 
Judges,  127. 
Jude,  94. 

Kings,  book  of,  130. 

King  James'  Version,  17-25. 

Lamentations,  155. 

Language  of  the  English  Bible,  34. 

Languages  of  the  Bible,  9,  35,  183. 

not  classic,  10. 

Aramaic,  10. 

Greek,  10. 
Languages  of  the  world,  182. 
Latin  Versions,  47. 
Leviticus  (see  Pentateuch),  125. 
Luke,  Gospel  of,  79. 
Luther's  Version,  37,  38. 

Malachi,  book  of,  181. 
Manuscripts,  ancient,  53. 
Alexandrian,  58. 
Beza's,  59. 
Cursives,  the,  60. 
divisions  of,  modern,  55. 
Ephraem,  58. 
Greco-Latin,  59. 
Hebrew,  60. 

classes  of,  60. 
Hebrew,  strict  rule>  for  preparing, 

60. 
N.  T.,  how  written,  53 

how  classified,  54. 
new,  59. 


221 


Manuscripts,   sections  in,    Ammonian,  Old  Testament,  Westminster  Confession 

sections  in,  how  numbered,  55. 

Sinaitic,  56. 

text,  divisions  of,  54. 

Titloi-titles,  number  of,  54. 

Uncial,  number  of,  56. 

Sinaitic,  how  found,  56. 

Vatican,  beauty  of,  53. 
character  of,  57. 
Mark,  Gospel  of,  7S. 
Massorah,  the,  61. 
Massoretes,  care  of  Bible,  195,  196 
Matthew,  Gospel  of,  76,  77. 
Matthew's  Bible,  31. 
Micah,  book  of,  177. 
Minor  Prophets,  173. 
Mishna,  101. 

Monuments  and  O.  T.,  134. 
Moses,  books  of,  119,  ff. 

law  of,  115,  ff. 


Nahum,  178. 

Nehemiah,  132. 

Nations,  three  foremost  of  the  world,  7. 

greatest  book  of,  7. 
New  MSS.  of  Bible,  59. 
New  Testament,  one  book,  64. 

agreement  on,  64. 

books,  groups  of,  75. 

completion  of,  70,  72. 

how  found,  69. 

Eastern  Church  on,  67. 

Luther  on,  65. 

forming  of,  66,  67. 

Western  Church  on,  66. 

books  of,  questioned,  66. 
catalogue  of,  68. 

character  of  writers,  73  . 

date  of  the  book,  76-96. 

early  catalogue  of,  68. 

names  of  writers  known,  73,  74. 

table  of,  96,  97. 

testing  books  of,  05. 

variety  of  writing  in,  73. 

writers  of,  74. 

Revised,  12,  14. 

words  in,  197. 

Tyndale's,  31. 
Numbers  (see  Pentateuch),  125. 

Obadiah,  175. 

Old  Testament,  a  growth,  98. 

books  quoted  in  the  New,  106. 

early  collections  of,  99. 

Ezra  and  the  Great  Synagogue,  104. 

how  formed,  98-105. 

Josephus  on,  102,  103. 

and  monuments,  134. 


on,  114. 
order  of  books,  Hebrew,  107,  108. 
Septuagint,  books  in,  100. 
Synod  of  Jamnia  on,  10 1. 
Origen  and  Josephus  on.  102,  109. 
triple  division  of,  105,  106. 
variations,    supposed,    in    the   list-, 

109. 
what  Philo  and  Talmudists  say,  104. 

Christ  and  N.   T.  writers  say, 
106. 
views  of  Latin  Church,  no. 

of  Greeks,  in. 

of  Protestants,  113. 

of  Lutherans,  113. 
Origen's  Hexapla,  51. 

Pauline  Epistles,  75-88. 
Pentateuch,  115. 

authorship  of,  116,  ff. 

composition  of,  118,  ff. 

contents  of,  124,  125. 

division  of,  115,  116. 
Peter,  Epistles  by,  91,  92. 
Philippians,  85. 
Philemon,  88. 

Poetic  books  O.  T.,  139,  ff. 
Poetry,  Hebrew,  140,  141. 
Polychrome  Bible,  6  . 
Prophecy  and  prophetical  books,  158,  ff. 

Ezekiel,  169. 

Daniel,  author,  170-173. 

division,  160. 

Isaiah,  author  of,  161,  ff. 
structure  of,  162. 

Jeremiah,  character  of,  167,  ff. 

Lamentations,  155. 

Minor  Prophets,  173. 
Prophetic  literature,  160. 
Prophets,  great  work  of,  158,  159. 
Proverbs,  147-149. 
Psalms,  139,  142-147. 

classification  of,  143,  146. 

date  of,  144. 

topics  of,  146. 
Purvey's  Version,  33. 

Reformers,  appeal  to  Bible,  no. 
Revelation,  book  of,  94-96. 
Revision,  plan  of,  15. 

changes  by,  16-18. 

objections  to,  17. 

American  committee  of,  14,  16. 

English  committee  of,  14-16. 
Rhyme  and  Metre  in  Hebrew,  139. 
Romans,  Epistle  to,  83. 
Rushworth  Gospels,  fac-simile,  34. 
Ruth.  128. 


222 


INDEX. 


Samuel,  book  of,  129,  130. 
Scriptures,  Jewish,  99,  ff. 

circulation  of,  188,  ff. 
Septuagint  (Greek  O.  T.),  50,  100. 
Sinaitic  MS.,  56. 
Solomon's  Song,  153. 
Song  of  Songs,  153-155. 
Songs,  early  sacred,  141. 

classification  of,  143. 
Spanish  Versions,  42. 
byriac  Versions,  46,  47. 
Swedish  Versions,  43. 

Table  of  N.  T.  books,  96,  97. 
Targums,  their  character,  51. 
Taverner's  Bible,  31. 
Testament,  how  derived,  8. 

New,  Revised,  12,  14. 

Old,  Revised,  12,  15. 
Tel-el-Amarna,  tablets.  11. 
Text,  early  divisions  of,  54. 

Hebrew,  61. 

Hebrew,  old  divisions,  62. 
Thessalonians,  Epistles  to,  86. 
Timothy,  Epistles  to,  87. 
Tischendorf,  56. 

Titus,  Eps    to  (see  Pauline  Eps.i,  87. 
Translators,  King  James,  20. 
Tyndale's  N.  T.  Version,  31,  32. 
Tyndale's  N.  T.,  fac-simile. 

Frontispiece. 
Uncial  MS.,  54-59- 

Vatican  MSS.,  57. 
Versions,  ancient,  44. 

Armenian,  44. 

Coptic  or  Egyptian,  three,  45. 

(1)  Memphitic  or  Bahiric,  45. 

(2)  Thebaic  or  Sahidic,  46. 

(3)  Bashmuric  or   Eleaarchian, 

46. 
Ethiopic,  46. 
Gothic,  45. 
Greek,  50,  100. 

Latin,  (1)  old  Latin,  (2)  Vulgate,  47. 
Septuagint,  50,  100. 
Syriac,  character  of,  46,  47. 
Vulgate,  by  Jerome,  48. 

Council  of  Trent  on,  49. 

Sixtine  edition,  corrected,  49. 

Clementine  Text,  50. 
Version,  authorized,  13,  22. 
changes  in,  16. 
charges  against,  23. 
Anglo-American,  12,  ff. 


Version,  American  Standard,  13. 

King  James,  15,  19. 

English,  Revised,  12. 

Common,  why  so  called,  14. 

editions,  noted  mistakes  in,  24. 

principles  of,  20. 

title-page,  fac-simile  of,  22,  23. 

King  James,  13,  17-25. 
why  revise,  15. 
Versions,  early  English. 

Anglo-Saxon,  34. 

Bishop's,  27. 

Coverdale's,  30. 

Cranmer's,  30. 

Douai,  26. 

early  English  MSS.  Bibles.  33. 

Genevan, by  English  reformers ,27, 28. 
New  Testament,  28. 

Great  Bible,  29. 

fac-simile  of  title-page,  29,  30. 

Matthew's,  31. 

Metrical,  33. 

Parker's,  27,  28. 

Purvey's,  33. 

Rushworth's,  34. 

Taverner's,  31. 

Tyndale's  New  Testament,  31,  32. 
first,  directly  from  Greek,  31. 

Wycliffe's,  32. 
Versions,  Modern,  etc.,  not  English,  37. 

Arabic,  43. 

Danish,  43. 

Dutch,  40. 

States'  Bible,  excellence  of,  41.' 

French,  41. 

Segond's,  41. 

German,  earlier,  39. 

by  Romanists,  40. 

Italian,  42. 

Luther's,  37,  38. 

Spanish,  42. 

Swedish,  43. 
Versions  of  Bible,  186. 
Version,  Revised.  12-15. 

Use  of.  t8 
Vulgate,  48. 

Western  church  on  N.  T.,  66. 
Wisdom  Literature,  146,  ff. 
Writers  of  N.  T.,  73,  74. 
Writing,  era  of,  11,  136. 
Wycliffe's  Version,  1382,  32. 

Zechanah,  book  of,  179. 
Zephaniah,  book  of,  179. 


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